And what it revealed wasn’t pretty. I knew that, but I couldn’t stop the heat of anger as it roared down my spine, lighting a fire in my stomach.
“Justin?” Landry’s voice came from behind me and I whirled around. He had a plastic bag hanging from two fingers of his right hand, and his face was only half lit from the streetlamp above us. I knew it was going to happen, but I wasn’t strong enough to put out the fire. No way to stop it before I breathed it out and burned the man I loved.
“What the fuck did you do?” I took a step toward him and his body swayed back, but he held his ground.
He dropped the bag and held his hands out, palms up, frowning. “Whoa, what are you talking about?” His eyes shifted to the side. “And did you just throw your phone out there?”
“Look at me, Landry.” His eyes darted back to me. “What picture did you post?”
He blinked and furrowed his brow. “What’s going on? You’re scaring me.”
“Good!” I screamed at him, and he flinched. “Because I just got off the phone with my mom and she knows, Landry. She fucking knows because of some picture you posted.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“What picture did you post?!”
His face paled at my shout and he shook his head. “I don’t know what picture you’re talking about. I posted a photo of us hanging out in Wisconsin. I don’t—” He stopped and took a breath, clenching his hands at his sides. His face shuttered, like he was bracing himself. “Isn’t this kind of a good thing? I mean, you were going to tell her anyway. . . .”
That was the problem, that’s what Landry didn’t understand. I had a timetable, sort of. A plan, and this wasn’t going according to the plan. “I wasn’t fucking ready!” I yelled. Landry’s eyes widened and his jaw ticked in warning but that fire was still burning a hole in my gut. “I wanted more time. I wanted to find a way to tell her the right way. Can’t you understand that?”
His eyes narrowed. “I do understand that, and I’m sorry. I can’t go back and make her unsee the picture. Which, for the record, I don’t even know what she means. I didn’t post a sex tape, for fuck’s sake, Justin!”
I took another step forward so only our hot breaths separated us. “I’ve seen some of those pictures, dumbass. It’s pretty clear by looking at them that we’re fucking.”
He flinched again and I hated myself. I knew he was getting singed. I knew we were going to leave this conversation covered in soot.
“That we’re fucking?” His voice was pure venom.
“Yes,” I hissed, knowing even as I spoke that this conversation had taken a turn with no bread crumbs to show us the way back.
“Right,” he spat. “My bad.”
I dug my fingernails into my palms and gritted my teeth at the pain. “Don’t get bitchy.”
Landry’s nostrils flared. “You know, you’re a real fucking expert at saying the most hurtful things you can when you’re angry, aren’t you? How about you just fucking hit me and get this over with?”
My skin itched and my shoulders tensed. “I’m not going to fucking hit you.”
Landry leaned forward so all I could see was his face. “I know you want to. Come on. I dare you.”
I cracked a knuckle in my first. But never, in a million years, would I lay a hand on Landry in anger. “I won’t hit you.”
“Why?” he taunted. “Would you have done it before when we were just friends?”
I uncurled my fists and flattened them along the side of my thighs. “No, I wouldn’t have. And it doesn’t matter, because we’re not just friends anymore.”
He jutted his chin out slightly. “What are we, then?”
He was pissed. Livid. But with that question, a pleading vulnerability showed through the blue of his eyes. So many words bubbled inside me. Best friends. Boyfriends. Lovers. Soul mates. The future.
But the fire was still raging, consuming those words until they were indistinguishable ash. All I said was, “We’re fighting.” I brushed past him, knocking his shoulder with mine. I heard him stumble in the gravel but I kept on walking.
***
I wandered around. I didn’t have a phone. Or a watch. I put one foot in front of the other in the balmy night and I separated myself from Landry and Sally before I razed the whole fucking rest stop to the ground.
I found some outbuilding with a muted yellow light and sank onto the ground below it, my back to the peeling brown paint, bugs buzzing around my head. I rested my elbows on my bent knees and let my hands dangle between my legs. When I got bored of counting the insects looking to eat me alive, I methodically tore apart the tall grass around me. I wished I had a baseball. I needed something to throw. And I’d already thrown my phone.
I concentrated on tearing each blade of grass into approximately inch-long pieces as I fumed at my mother and the injustice of how she wanted me to live my life.
I railed at Landry because he posted the picture that started this whole thing.
And then I fell into despair of self-loathing because I was really mad at myself. For not being truthful. For not sticking up for myself. For being a coward.
I tore the grass until my fingers were grass-stained and sore, and I was sitting within a mowed-down circle.
Only then did the fire inside me give up its last spark and sputter out.
And that’s when regret set in.
When Landry’s eyes as he said What are we then? flashed through my head. I missed that chance. To tell the truth about how scared I was. How I wanted to forge my own path in life but I didn’t know how. Instead I’d lashed out like I always did. Like a kid did.
When would I grow up and act like a man?
It wasn’t Landry’s fault. It wasn’t even really my mom’s fault. At what point did I stop blaming her for my problems and start blaming myself?
I heard the hissing of brakes and figured it was a bus based on the small chatter drifting through the humid air.
I didn’t know how much time had passed, and I knew I needed to go back and apologize. I was always apologizing. Because I was always fucking up. I stood up and shook out the soreness in my ass and knees. This had to stop, this lashing out and lying and generally being a giant dickhead. Landry didn’t deserve that.
I trudged back, knowing I had an RV-load of groveling to do. When I reached Sally, I took a deep breath and opened the door. I stepped up into the cabin and looked for Landry.
And I didn’t see him.
“Lan?” I walked back toward the bathroom but the door was open and it was empty.
Dread settled heavy as iron in my gut. “Lan?” I called again into an empty RV, knowing there’d be no answer but hoping anyway.
I trotted to the door and was about to head out to look for him around the rest stop when my gaze caught on the cabinet over the couch. It was open an inch. Even though there were ten other explanations for why the cabinet where Landry stored his clothes was open, my stomach dropped into my toes.
I reached for the cabinet. My arms heavy, my legs moving through quicksand. I crooked my finger around the edge of the cabinet and pushed it all the way open.
It was empty.
Empty.
“Fuck!” I yelled, tearing around the RV, looking for anything of Landry’s but his stuff was gone—clothes, toiletries. All of it.
I reached into my pocket for my phone but my hand felt nothing. And I remembered I’d thrown it into the field. “Goddammit!” I screamed and ran out of the RV, remembering too late that I’d thrown away my key chain light.
Would I always act like a toddler and throw things when I got angry? Fuck, this had to stop.
I ran back into the RV to get a flashlight. Then I was back outside, searching the tall grass for my phone. I swore at myself the whole time, ignoring the mud seeping into my shoes and the wetness creeping up the legs of my je
ans. Mosquitoes ate my face alive and my only thought was that I hoped they didn’t have West Nile or something, because fuck it, I was on a mission. I needed to find my phone. Because when I found my phone I could find Landry.
I knew the general vicinity it landed in, and when I narrowed my search, I dropped to my hands and knees, rocks and thorny plants digging into my skin.
And when my hand closed around plastic, I nearly wept with relief.
I stood up in the field and turned it on, thanking all that was holy that it still worked.
I called him three times in a row as I walked back to the RV, leaving escalating voice mails, but he didn’t answer. Then I texted, Where the fuck are you?
When he didn’t answer my text, I called three more times, not taking the time to leave messages.
Finally, as I sat on the couch and stared at the screen, my phone beeped with a text.
On a bus.
A bus? He left me?
No fucking way. You’re not on a bus.
Pretty sure it’s a bus.
I patted my pockets for my keys and then grabbed a pen to scribble an address on my palm. Get off now. I’m coming to get you.
No.
I gritted my teeth and clicked the pen. Yes.
No answer. Nada.
Landry?
Landry?
LANDRY!!!!
Finally my phone beeped again. Quit yelling, it’s hurting my eyeballs.
Please, please let me come get you. Or come back. I’m sorry.
Nope. Not doing this with you. Being with someone who’s ashamed of me.
Fuck, is that what he thought? I’M NOT ASHAMED OF YOU.
Yeah? Were you ever going to tell her?
He had every right to doubt me, but that question still stung. Yes, come back and I’ll prove it to you.
He ignored my plea. Then why did you flip out?
Because I’m an idiot. Because I’m ashamed of myself.
Why?
I’m a coward. I’m a coward.
My phone rang, startling me. Landry’s face appeared on the screen and my finger couldn’t press answer fast enough. “Yeah?”
“You’re not.” His voice. Oh, his voice. I wanted to wrap it around me and snuggle it.
“I’m not what?”
“You’re not a coward. You need to come out and do this when you’re ready. I know you have it in you to be proud of who you are, but I don’t want to be responsible for pressuring you before you’re ready. And I’m not going to be your scapegoat. I’m not going to be the one who gets the brunt of your anger when who you’re really mad at is yourself.”
“I don’t—”
“I love you, but I gotta go. Bye, Jus.”
I heard a click but didn’t want to believe it. I yelled at the phone, screaming his name, asking the silence if he really loved me.
I sat and stared at my dark screen for half an hour. And all I could text back was, I love you, too.
He didn’t answer.
Chapter Sixteen
I woke up clutching my phone on the couch. My teeth were fuzzy and my head whirled like I had a hangover. I blinked and my face felt tight, itchy, and swollen. I looked down at my body still in last night’s clothes and shoes, for God’s sake. I hadn’t changed or cleaned up, or even brushed my teeth.
Landry left, and I was a fucking mess.
I uncricked my neck and rose to a sitting position. I shook my head and gathered my bearings. Then I slipped off my shoes and stripped out of my muddy clothes. When I looked in the bathroom mirror, I barely recognized myself. Dark circles hung under my eyes, and I probably had a good dozen bug bites on my face. I looked like an acne-ridden teenager.
I scratched at a wicked bite on my nose and turned away, tempted to cover the mirror for the rest of the trip.
And I was going to finish this trip, I thought as I stepped into the shower. Even though my mom thought it was all about experimenting as a gay man, that was far and away not the intention of this trip. I’d never planned to make a confession, sleep with my best friend, and fall in love with him.
This trip was still about my dad. I still had his urn and some ashes and I swore on his grave I was going to fucking finish it.
Without Landry.
The thought tightened my throat but I held up my head because it was time to grow up. I couldn’t change the past, I couldn’t live saying if only, if only. That’s what Landry had said and he was right. But I could take responsibility for my future.
I braced my hands on the wall of the shower and let the water pelt my back. So the only benefit of Landry not being here was that I could use his water. And dammit, I was going to take advantage.
I stayed in the shower until the water ran cold, then dressed in a T-shirt and pair of track pants. I straightened up the RV, which had usually been Landry’s job. I pretended he’d be back to check over my handiwork so I took it seriously, rubbing the faded counter until it was sparkling, folding our—shit, just mine now—bedding and storing it in the overhead compartments.
As I cleaned up some errant popcorn under Landry’s—fuck, the passenger—seat, something silver came into my line of focus. I froze as my eyes settled on Landry’s laptop and sketchpad. I blinked and sank down onto the seat. He must have left them in his hurry to leave my asshole self.
I reached with tentative fingers and drew out the sketchpad first. He hadn’t shown me what he’d been working on, but he sketched at every spot. I leaned back and propped my feet on the dashboard as I flipped through. The first couple of pages were sketches of the view out of Sally’s windshield. Then there were a couple of me. My hands on the steering wheel. My face in laughter. I didn’t even know I looked like that. The way Landry drew me, I looked happy and free. I looked like I was where I belonged.
And then I reached pictures that were labeled along the top. September. October. November. Each month a sketch, and it took me a minute to realize he’d been replicating my dad’s calendar with his own drawings. I knew Landry. I knew he’d been drawing them for me.
Tears threatened but I held them back. I snapped the sketchpad shut and slipped it back into the basket beside my seat. I pinched the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger.
I didn’t know what picture he posted that my mom so disapproved of. I flipped open the laptop and turned it on. Then typed it the password he always used—livetodraw.
I took a deep breath and pulled up the blog on the Internet browser. The header was swirly and decorative but still masculine—JusLan’s Road Trip for Charlie ran across the top. Turns out he even created the hashtag #JusLan and encouraged blog visitors to tweet or post on Facebook about our travels. My cheeks ached and I realized it was because I was grinning so hard.
I scrolled down, reading Landry’s posts. When I reached the one from the B and B, my breath caught. I knew what picture my mom referred to now. I had held the camera out in front of us so I could get us both in the frame. Neither of us were facing the camera and I probably would have chalked it up as an outtake if I scanned the pictures quickly. But it was anything but. Landry looked at me, his mouth open in laughter and my eyes were on him, a small smile on my face. But my expression wasn’t just friendly. It was full of love and lust and any moron could take one look at that picture and know we were a couple.
It was the best picture I ever took. I fucking loved it.
Anger swirled through me again. But this time it was at my mom. Because how could she look at this picture and see anything but her son gazing at the love of his life? Who was she to condemn this because he had pierced ears and tattoos and was . . . a guy? If I ever became a parent, and my kid looked at someone like I was looking at Landry, I’d know they found their soul mate. And I’d be happy for them.
“Fuck. Her.” I spat at the screen and slammed it shut.
I needed something to do with my hands. My left fingers twitched, seeking the smooth leather of a baseball, but I needed to focus. I ripped out a blank page of Landry’s sketchbook, dug for a pencil, and scratched “To Do” at the top of the paper.
I tapped the pencil on my lips, scratched at the bite on my nose, and kept writing.
1. Finish trip
2. Keep blogging
3.
My pencil hovered over the period I’d just made. This was just a to-do list, an idea of how to get my life back on track. Or actually, to decide if I wanted to take my life off that track and take it in another direction. A new direction I didn’t look at with dread but where the future shone bright like the sun.
A direction with Landry.
I knew that track wouldn’t be easy. It’d be a roller coaster but it would be worth it. I’d already careened down that hill. I had to keep going.
So I kept writing.
3. Come out. Guns blazing. Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
4. Get Landry back.
5. Figure out what the hell to do come September.
I looked at the paper. It was only five items. Five lines. But they were huge and life changing and completely dependent on me. No one else was helping me with this shit.
Which, really, was for the best anyway. Time for me to get my head out of my ass and do something for myself.
Numbers one and two weren’t too hard. I could do those. And I knew how. But three, four, and five? Yeah. No fucking clue. How did someone even come out? I didn’t remember Landry coming out. All of a sudden, he just was. And everyone knew.
And how to get Landry back? Yeah, that sucked. And that was actually a little dependent on someone else. He had to take me back. And after my asshat actions, that was looking less and less likely.
As for five? I knew now, with a strong-willed conviction, that I couldn’t work for my mom anymore. She probably wouldn’t want me to when I confirmed the truth. And I’d have been miserable doing it anyway. I wanted to find something that made me feel. Something I was passionate about.
Fuck it. One thing at a time.
I cut a small square of duct tape and stuck the piece of paper on the dashboard. I wanted my goals front and center. Sally would hold me accountable.
Trust the Focus Page 16
