by Jude Sierra
“Your father is in the hospital,” she says. “He had a massive heart attack; he’s been on life support, but they don’t think he’s going to make it.” Tears; he definitely hears them now. He doesn’t feel anything.
“Okay.” For a moment he’s completely blank, and all the noise of the room falls away. He should offer condolences? Offer to come home? Feel bad?
“Will you come home?” She makes it easy, because he doesn’t have to make an empty offer. “Help me say goodbye?”
Milo closes his eyes. He’s made his way out of the room and into the hall. He pinches the bridge of his nose and swallows shouts of frustration. Her persistent invention of a life where he’d want to say goodbye frustrates the shit out of him. The pretense that must have sustained her through years of enabling his father in demeaning and abusing him with words and sometimes hands makes him sick. Loving her makes him sick too because, like everything else, he can’t help it.
He doesn’t yell though, because that won’t change anything. “Sure, Mom. I’ll find a flight.”
None of his dorm mates are home, which is fantastic news, because Milo is on a single mission: Book a flight and then get shit-faced alone.
It doesn’t take him long to do either, and soon enough everything is a surreal, nauseating blur that begins to sit on him heavily, while his thoughts careen beyond his control. He isn’t numb at all; he’s brought on helplessness. The specter of his father, a man much bigger in Milo’s memory than in real life, nags him. The secrets he keeps locked away begin to rise.
He throws up once and then puts his too-hot forehead on the floor and tries to breathe, but he can’t slow his brain and his lungs. Despite the unspooling of the tie that’s bound him to Andrew, there’s only one person Milo depends on when panic and fear hit him like this. His face is wet with tears he hasn’t registered, whose origin—panic or fear or grief—he can’t name. They leave wet splotches on his shirt when he wipes them away, but the screen of his phone still blurs when he calls Andrew.
“I’m sorry,” is the first thing he says when Andrew’s concerned voice prickles through the line. Shit, it’s one a.m. “I always call when I’m a mess.”
Since the summer, this is what they’ve reduced themselves to. Texts, sometimes, because longing and frustration are easier to handle like that, and phone calls when he’s in a panic. Milo realizes more and more that he should erase himself from Andrew’s life, because Andrew’s hurt is so clear. Although he tries to hold out, whenever things are at their worst, he can never stop himself from calling Andrew to help him get through it.
“Milo, what’s going on, you sound awful, are you drun—okay, Milo, you need to take a long, slow breath.” Andrew’s voice immediately goes into calming mode. That sound is enough to slam Milo into that ugly, scared and weak place, which is also that space that’s so safe.
“M-my dad…” He hiccups. “My mom called and he’s in the hospital. He’s dying.”
“Oh my god.”
“She needs me to go back. To help. Or something. She said she wants me to say goodbye.” He ends the sentence feeling a bitter anger that burns up his throat and into his mouth.
“You don’t have to, you know,” Andrew says. “You don’t have to go back, you don’t.”
“You know I do. Of course I do.”
“No, no.” There’s a rustling in the background and Milo can hear Andrew whispering something.
“God, fuck, have I interrupted something?”
“Nothing more than my sleep, dummy.”
“Sorry,” Milo says lamely. He knows Andrew isn’t alone. The only time he ever experiences Andrew’s anger is through texts he gets late some nights. It’s not vicious, but it’s bitter, because they both know Milo doesn’t need to know about the boys Andrew sleeps with.
“Stop apologizing.”
“I don’t mean to only call you when I’m like this.”
“I know,” Andrew says softly.
“I do have to go home.” Milo is lying on the floor now with the fuzz of the bathroom throw rug scratching against his hand. “I can’t not. She needs me.”
Andrew breathes. It’s calming, and Milo can feel himself slipping into a near sleep.
“Well, I’ll see you there, then.”
“Andrew—” Milo whispers, wanting to protest because he should.
“Sleep it off. Call me in the morning to give me your flight details.”
°
“Everything okay?” Emery rolls over, eyes still mostly shut, hair a fucked-out mess, eyeliner smudged.
“No, I have to—you have to go.” Andrew trips over his own discarded pants, then pulls them up over his bare ass.
“Andrew, it’s one in the morning.” Emery sits up with the sheet pooling in his lap.
“I’m know, but I have to pack and find flights.” Andrew tosses Emery his shirt. The frown starting to build on Emery’s face clears.
“What’s happened?” Emery asks, hopping into his clothes. He’s still half drunk, too, so he almost falls over. “Fuck, I hope you aren’t planning on going anywhere right now.”
“No, I need to shower and get myself pulled together. My friend’s father is dying.”
“Who?”
“No one you know, from back home.” Andrew shakes his head as if that will clear it. He’s still tipsy, but also a little hungover, some sort of sick post-party twilight he’s never visited before. “God, fuck, what did we do?”
“You and I, or the party?”
“Har, har.” Andrew shoots Emery a smirk. “I remember what we did quite clearly, thank you very much.”
“You are so welcome.” Emery, dressed at last, leans forward to peck Andrew’s lips. “Can I do anything for you here, then?”
“No, I’m going to shower first and finish the sobering process.”
“Well then, until next time, and all that—”
“All that?” Andrew follows Emery to the door.
“You know, the next time you tell me you really aren’t going to sleep with me this time.”
Andrew laughs and pushes him lightly out the door. “I mean it this time.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Emery calls out.
The laughter dies on Andrew’s lips as soon as the door is locked. His head throbs a little, and his body is layered in sweat and the scent of sex and smoke; his bed is a wreck, and his mouth tastes like garbage.
First things first: Andrew drinks enough water for three people, pops three Advil, and sets the shower to lukewarm. While he’s in the water, edging it a little cooler, he begins to feel clearheaded enough to plan the next few steps.
° ° °
MILO WANDERS upstairs feeling as if his insides are expanding beyond the borders of his skin, as if the stifling gray he’s been swimming in since his mother called might roll out of him and spill throughout the house. The sound of people speaking in hushed tones—as if they care, as if no one knew what kind of man James Graham was—follows him all the way to his room.
He barely remembers the last week: the redeye flight home; holding his mother in the hospital after she signed off on terminating support; pulling together a funeral whose details had already been planned. Of course James Graham would not trust anyone else with this. Even dead, he’s exerting his control.
The funeral reception is in full swing, if such a thing can be said of such a somber gathering. Downstairs, people tell stories that portray his father in much kinder light than he deserves. Milo spares a few moments to wonder what it is about death that makes people want to sanctify the person who passed. Milo stood with them as long as he could, biting back every wave of anger and urge to tell all the truths hidden in this house for so long.
His room is a refuge. Milo sits for a long time in a floating, almost unbearable space. He forces himself to breathe as Andrew coached him time after time. His eyes trace a scuffed mark along the baseboard of the far wall. He can’t for the life of him remember how that had happened. If his
father ever saw it, Milo is sure he would remember, because there would have been hell to pay. The sight of a coffin being lowered slowly into the hard ground echoes in his head. His heart is cramping and he isn’t sure why—why it insists on feeling grief when what he should be feeling is freedom. No. Nonono, he cannot not afford to let his father’s memory in, not for a second. If it does, if he tears that thin membrane protecting the world from that turmoil inside, nothing will ever be put to rights again. For anyone. He will never be put to rights again.
The door slides open a few inches; Andrew slips in and closes it behind him. No noise follows—Milo supposes enough time has passed that everyone has left. Andrew is all soft eyes and familiar smile; the collar of his soft lilac dress shirt is unbuttoned, his tie has been abandoned and his sleek black pants are losing their crease. From the moment he met Milo at the airport with a hug and a hand to hold, but offered silently, Andrew has been, as always, exactly what he needs.
“Hey,” Andrew says. Milo’s room is as it has been since he left for USC—mostly stripped, a sad shell of what was always pretty sad space. Andrew takes it in with a cursory glance. “Everyone is gone.”
“Thanks,” Milo says. He doesn’t look up. “Sorry, I just—”
“It’s fine.” Andrew sits next to him carefully. “Your mom went to lie down, so my mom and I put the food away.”
“God, I’m sorry. I didn’t eve—”
“Stop.” Andrew puts a hand on Milo’s knee and squeezes hard. “You don’t need to think about that stuff right now. That’s what I’m here for. What we’re all here for.”
“What you’re here for,” Milo repeats. His voice lifts a little and when he looks up at Andrew, his eyes are intense and bright. Andrew bites his lip and exhales through his nose. Milo could spend every moment of these few days together looking at Andrew and relearning every detail he’s missed in the last months, as well as the new ones. Andrew here today is both the same boy he’s known and altogether someone new.
The distance between them, like two sailboats slipped farther and farther from their moorings in the last few months, has never seemed so real or so scary. He regrets every time he wanted to call Andrew and didn’t, every new thing they’ve done and haven’t talked about and all the space they’ve pushed between them to avoid something he knows won’t ever change.
“What do I do now?” Milo whispers.
Andrew frowns. “What do you mean?”
Milo sighs and closes his eyes, then turns himself toward Andrew’s body. He pulls him in tightly; Andrew’s breath is hot against his skin.
“Who am I even, like this?”
“You’re you.”
“Andrew,” Milo says as he pulls back, his voice scratchy with tears, “my whole life, he’s been there. Sometimes, it felt like all my life was him.”
“But that’s not true.” Andrew kneels on the bed and puts his hands on Milo’s shoulders. “You’re so much more.”
“Drew, I’m not talking about how you see me or how you want me to believe in a greater future or anything like that. I mean that my whole life feels like it was centered on being scared of him. Of wishing,” he says, dashing tears away, “fuck, that I could fucking make him happy for once. Of working for his love and wondering how I could love him.”
“Milo,” Andrew says, but it sounds hopeless.
“He was the only thing, the only thing.” Milo moans, bent over and crying against Andrew’s knees. “I thought it would be over when I went away. I thought I’d break away from him.”
“I know,” Andrew whispers. “We both thought that.”
“I’ll always be stuck here, won’t I?”
“No, no,” Andrew says fiercely, fingers digging into Milo’s shoulders and pulling him up. “No, that’s not true.” He uses his thumbs to swipe at the moisture on Milo’s face.
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh my god,” Andrew says with a watery laugh. “Stop apologizing—”
“Ugh.” Milo covers his eyes. “I was barely holding it together, and then you came in. You’re always my emotional overload victim.”
“Well, I’d hardly say victim,” Andrew says with an eye roll. “Like I said, that’s what best friends are for.” He presses his lips together as soon as the words are out.
“I know you said not to apologize, but I am sorry things have been off for the last few months.”
“Well, that’s on both of us.”
Milo pulls Andrew’s hand from his shoulder and holds it between his own. “I’ve really missed you, though.”
Andrew’s fingers are warm. His face glows. “Good. Because I’ve missed you too.”
“Do you ever miss the way things were?” Milo pulls away and lies on the bed, pulling Andrew with him.
“What, before college?”
“Yeah,” Milo says.
Andrew shrugs. Their knees bump together. On his side and so close, Milo can see that the tan Andrew sported over the summer has faded. His face is beautiful: familiar and sweet and open and so missed. Milo hasn’t named his longing, but it’s a subterranean ache he’s carried around as he’s gone off into his new life. It’s not a best friend kind of longing, what he’s lived with since September. It’s a love longing: the one he’s talked himself out of for a ridiculously long time.
“I miss some things. I miss my mom’s cooking,” Andrew says, glossing over the silence.
“Yeah, me too.”
“Obviously, I miss you,” Andrew says more quietly. He shifts a little closer; the heat from his body and the sound of his voice are comforting. “But I don’t miss you being here, because that was hard for you. I’ll never miss you being in pain.”
Milo closes his eyes when they start to burn. “Andrew,” he says helplessly.
“That’s why I’ll always be okay with missing you,” Andrew whispers. “Because it’s better than the alternative.”
“He’s gone.”
“Is he?” Andrew asks. “Here?” His hand covers Milo’s chest and his thumb moves rhythmically back and forth. Milo covers it with his hand. Andrew, oh god, how is he always just right?
“Maybe one day,” Milo says. “God, I h-hope—” Milo’s face crumples and he starts to cry, thinking of all the years he’s struggled, and how he feels as if it’s all still inside, a poison he doesn’t have an antidote for . Andrew is right; he’s not free yet.
“Milo.” Andrew shifts forward, closing the space between them. “I’m sorry about the texts.” For all their quiet, Andrew’s words pierce Milo more sharply than anything he’s felt in the last week.
“I’m—” Milo bites his lip and takes a breath and rushes through the confession. “I’m sorry about that night. I’m sorry I’ve always been so scared. You deserve so much more.”
Andrew holds him tighter, his smell overpowers Milo, and against his cheek Andrew’s skin is a soft welcome. Home is here, wrapped up with this man. He can’t help but press a small kiss to the skin of his neck, then the jut of his jaw where stubble has started to roughen it, before taking Andrew’s parted lips with his own. Milo’s kissing him for the love they’ve been in, for the desire and longing he’s denied himself. Even the idea of letting another person this close has scared Milo for as long as he can remember. Andrew is the safest person in his whole world, the only one he can ever imagine himself really wanting.
He kisses Andrew’s cheeks and nose and mouth, all slippery with his tears. But by the time he works his way back to Andrew’s mouth, all he hears is Andrew whispering his name, shocked and gasping. Milo works his lips over that gasp, captures Andrew’s mouth in a kiss that’s familiar despite the fact that they’ve only done this twice in four years.
“Milo, what—” Andrew breaks away. His fingers are twisted into the fabric of his shirt.
“I love you,” Milo says, knowing no words can really express what’s happening inside him right now. “I love you and I’ve missed you and I want you.” He looks away and takes a breath before meeting And
rew’s eyes. “I’ve never done this. I want to give you this.”
“God, oh—” Andrew kisses him then, quick, light kisses Milo wants to chase. “I love you too. Please say this isn’t just for me, though.”
“No, no.” Milo shakes his head. “I didn’t mean it like that—I’m so—”
“Don’t apologize.” Andrew winds his leg between Milo’s and rolls them over. “Just kiss me right now, please.”
Andrew kisses him so hard, desperate and a little dirty, and all heat and passion. Milo races to catch up but can’t and so submits, gives what Andrew is seeking, lets Andrew’s mouth and touch take him somewhere safe and new and full of feelings he’s never let himself have.
“Do you have—”
“Here,” Milo says, fumbling for the half forgotten lube in his bedside drawer.
It’s very dark and very quiet. Milo isn’t sure what impulse makes Andrew shut off the tiny light, but he doesn’t say anything. In the dark, everything can be Andrew. In the dark, Milo can let Andrew erase the last of his borders.
Andrew settles them so that Milo is on top of him. His fingers find the buttons of Milo’s shirt so easily, as if this is a dance they’ve done a thousand times before. Milo’s fingers feel clumsy and unsure, but Andrew catches them, kisses them and helps guide them. The only sound in the room is the whisk of cloth as they pull shirts off, and the near silent flump as they hit the floor. Andrew toes his shoes off, and they clatter to the floor. Milo breathes carefully and helps Andrew with his pants. Andrew handles the lube with ease, and then his hands squeeze Milo’s hips hard when he pulls them together. His skin against Milo’s feels heartbreakingly intimate. He wonders if his door is locked, and then Andrew’s lips brush his again, and again, and Milo stops thinking.
