by Jude Sierra
Rachel is running her finger down a worksheet in her binder. “Remember to balance your needs and priorities with the other person’s,” she reads aloud.
“That’s hardly fair,” Reid says. “I don’t know his needs.”
“True,” Nancy says. “But maybe text conversations aren’t quite the place to judge the tone of the situation.”
“Plus, Reid, you totally have a tendency to—”
“Elise,” Rachel hisses. Reid hates that he doesn’t have to ask her to finish the sentence. He’s a chaser. When he panics, he chases and pushes and then retreats and panics more and assumes all kinds of things. The anxiety and panic cycle and then he spirals. It’s not pretty.
“This all seems dramatically serious advice for a boy I’ve kissed like, once.”
“You kissed him?” Elise shrieks. “You didn’t tell us that!”
Reid ducks his head, wondering if his blush is visible on-screen. “Well…” Reid starts, but has no idea what to say.
“So, you really like this guy?” Rachel asks. She glances up at the screen and Reid meets her eyes. Rachel’s never been good at eye contact; it took him weeks to realize her eyes were the most unusual hazel he’d ever seen.
Reid tilts his head. “What makes you think that?”
“Well,” she says, fingers tracing the pattern of conjoined of circles on her pillow, “you swore you weren’t going to get involved with anyone or try a relationship. Because, um, you know.”
“Because of Felix,” Elise blurts out. She takes her hair down and shakes it out. The light catches her blonde highlights. She puts it back up into a messy bun. She’s forever messing with her hair when she’s agitated.
“Elise,” Rachel says and sighs. Reid’s mostly gotten over being offended by Elise’s bluntness.
“Listen,” Elise says. “I’m trying to help and be honest and I’m sorry if it comes off unkindly. But I care about you, Reid.”
“We all do,” Nancy interjects.
“And I am worried. Because things with Felix were so messed up.”
“Well, I mean—I wouldn’t—” Reid stammers.
“Honey.” Rachel’s quiet voice hardly carries through his speakers. He tilts forward. “Maybe we should have said this sooner, but your relationship with Felix wasn’t good for you. And you’re far away and you don’t have a support system there—”
“You guys—”
“That’s right,” Nancy says. “Reid, I hope you know we are a support system, and that we all care for you. And that that caring might take the form of saying things you may not want to hear. And I want to invite all of us to consider or respect that we should be honest, but to be careful about pressing if we’re not totally ready.”
“No,” Reid says. “I want to hear this. I was just surprised that no one said anything about Felix before.”
“Well, I would—I thought… I tried.” Rachel says.
He sighs and grips his pillow. He doesn’t want to think about Felix. Not at all. When he admits that, Rachel and Elise nod, as if they understand.
“Well, we know you. So even though there are things you weren’t saying, we could kind of tell,” Rachel ventures.
Reid shrugs. “It’s funny. Felix has been this huge, fucked up part of my life for a long time. So it’s not like it wasn’t weighing on me. How unhealthy our relationship was. How we both played a role in that. My terrible choices, his shitty decisions. Wondering if I even know how to have a healthy relationship with someone.” Elise clears her throat. It’s a pointed comment. Reid isn’t looking at the screen, but he knows Rachel well enough to know she’s sending Elise quite the look. “But I can’t stop thinking about him lately.”
“Because you have a potential new guy?” Rachel asks.
Reid curls and uncurls his fingers. “Maybe?”
“Do you want to follow your thought pattern?” Nancy asks.
Reid imagines the drawing he and Nancy would make, were they alone: linking circles. The first circle would be the worry thought. Then they would make another circle for whatever thought or action might be attached to it and follow the thoughts until he found the core of an anxiety that might at first seem unrelated to his situation. Not the case here.
“He cheated on me,” Reid says in one rushed breath. “And I promised myself that would be the end of the relationship. And emotionally, it was.”
“Was it, though?” Elise asks.
A reflexive response pushes against his lips, and he bites it back. Reid makes himself consider the whats and the whys. It was the end, in a way. But if it was the end, why did I always end up back in bed with Felix, sucked back into arguments and spinning my wheels until I was so desperate to get away that the opportunity to leave everything seemed life-saving?
“I guess yes and no? I knew—know—that I’m not in love with him anymore. But I couldn’t stop caring. I thought when I came here I’d close the door on all of it.”
“And it’s not like that.” Rachel’s face is a study in sympathy.
“I just kick that door back open every time I text him,” Reid says, working through the words. “And it’s all tangled up. Because I really like Joaquim. I wasn’t expecting to, and I don’t know how to do this.” Reid presses his knuckles under his eyes, forcing himself not to cry. “I’m just going to fuck all this up.”
“Reid.” Elise’s voice is soft and kind, and he aches to be in the same room.
“Reid, I have some advice and some homework for you before we go,” Nancy says. “First, I want you to be sure you’re keeping up on your diary cards. I know you thought you didn’t need them anymore, but you’re in a new environment and I think it might be good to be sure you’re tracking your moods to see how they correspond with behaviors.”
But it was just one time.
He swallows his protest, because that’s not the point. All things start with one time.
“Also, evaluate how you feel about Joaquim. If you want to pursue something with him, I would like you to reflect on your willingness to examine past relationships and their patterns. There are things you don’t want to think about. I know, since we’ve discussed that you don’t feel strong enough. But I think you’re ready.”
“Me too,” Rachel chimes in.
“If you find that it’s too painful, of course you can talk to us or contact me outside of our meetings if you’re feeling triggered.”
“Okay,” he says softly. He digs his thumbnail into the nailbed of his left index finger. The pain is sharp, warm, and centering.
“And I’d like you to look into forming a support group or network where you are. I know,” she says, interrupting him before he can protest, “that this seems overwhelming. But when we have our next individual session, we’ll work it out together, okay?”
Reid nods. He misses them. He misses the soft comfort of Nancy’s room. He misses hugging Rachel and Elise. It’s not that their hugs are any different than other hugs. But being metaphorically and literally held by people who have walked a path no one else seems to understand, he misses that with a sharp, lonely pain like the phantom pain of a missing limb.
Nine
Joaquim sighs when he gets Reid’s text, then frowns. It’s past noon. He’s worried, but also on the fence about how worried he should be. Reid is a big boy after all, and, despite the kiss and the flirting, he doesn’t know him all that well. Well enough to hover? Joaquim tosses his phone on his bed. Why am I so invested already?
But that doesn’t matter, really, because he is.
“Talk to me, man,” Bobby says from where he’s still starfished face down on his bed. He had to work this morning despite his hangover and clomped into their room a few minutes ago, flopped down and groaned. “Your sighing is too intense. Also, close the blinds, will ya?”
Joaquim closes them and grabs Bobby water from their minifridge. H
e nudges Bobby’s hand with the water bottle and then jabs harder when Bobby doesn’t respond.
“Thanks.” With his mouth mashed into the covers, Bobby’s voice is hardly discernible. “Okay, spill. Boy drama?”
“Do you really want to hear this?” Joaquim asks, more curious than confrontational.
“Sure.”
It’s not a resounding endorsement, but Joaquim is bursting to bounce ideas off someone. Bobby is only a few feet away and, given his hangover, not likely to run off.
“I texted Reid last night after he disappeared—”
“He disappeared?” Bobby lifts his head slightly. He was only a smidge less drunk than Reid last night.
“Well, not like, kidnapped. Like gone. Although for all I knew, yeah.” The bitterness in his voice takes him by surprise.
“I don’t remember that,” Bobby admits.
“Yeah, maybe he doesn’t either.”
“What, he didn’t text you back?”
“Like an hour ago he did. It just said he was home and okay.” Joaquim drops onto his bed, and the springs squeak. “But that’s it! That’s all I got!”
“Well, if he was drunker than me, he probably wants to die. And maybe he only just woke up.”
“Okay, yeah,” Joaquim concedes. “But nothing after that?”
“I repeat—”
“I know,” Joaquim snaps, then closes his eyes. “Sorry. I guess I’m disappointed with how the night turned out. I didn’t see him as the kind of guy to get like that at a party.”
“Really? With all the piercings and the refusal to wear shorts?”
“With his personality once you get to know him,” Joaquim says. “Which is not what the piercings lead you to expect.”
“Book-judger,” Bobby says.
“Come again?” Joaquim squints, sure he misheard due to Bobby’s face still being mashed into the bed.
“You totally judged his book by the cover at first. Well, I guess we all did.”
Joaquim snorts. Bobby’s shoulders shake, so Joaquim assumes he’s laughing at his own turn of phrase as well.
Bobby rolls over. “You seem to like me just fine, and I was hammered last night.”
“I’m not saying I don’t like him anymore. I didn’t see that behavior coming. And I thought, um, he invited me to hang out.”
“I don’t know, man,” Bobby sits up. “He was tipsy when we came in and he seemed nervous. It was a party; it’s not like he took you to a candlelit dinner and then got fucked up.”
“Yeah.”
“So are you really upset that he got drunk, or…?”
“That and not telling me when he was leaving. Leaving me hanging, and then worried, and then nothing until noon!”
“I guess you should talk to him about it if you want to, if you like him that much.”
“I do. Did. Do.” Joaquim shakes his head.
“Well, if he doesn’t text or call by the end of the day, call him tomorrow.”
“Basically, wait a little and give him time.” Joaquim sighs again and flops back on his bed, narrowly missing the wall with his head.
Bobby lies back, face down again; the room is cloaked in silence.
Reid: So word on the street is that I was a dumbass last night
Joaquim squints at his phone. It’s late, and he was in class all morning. Still, he’s been hoping for a text all day; this is worth a moment.
Joaquim: I don’t know that I’d say it like that.
Reid: I would. I’m sorry. Would you believe if I said I don’t usually do that?
Joaquim pauses. The three dots at the bottom of the screen indicate that Reid is still typing.
Reid: That I’m not that kind of boy ;)
Joaquim wants to take the bait, because he’s got a hunch Reid is trying to redirect.
Joaquim: If you tell me you don’t usually do that, I’ll believe you.
There’s a long silence, too long for a text conversation at midnight when he’s reasonably sure Reid isn’t doing anything else.
Reid: That’s a lot of trust for someone you barely know.
Joaquim has to think about that one, because with texts it’s impossible to discern tone. Something about the phrasing prickles.
Joaquim: Well, what reason would you have for lying? You got drunk. It happens.
Reid: Yeah. I guess.
Joaquim reads defeat all over that text, which bothers him a little. He wants to tell Reid it’s all okay and forgiven. After all, it’s not as if Reid owes him an explanation. But his behavior irritated Joaquim. He’s not sure how to approach it when he doesn’t have a right to and he doesn’t know Reid well enough to predict how he’ll react.
Reid: Anyway, listen. I’m sorry I left without letting you know where I was going.
Reid: It’s embarrassing to admit, but I don’t remember leaving. I don’t remember much.
Joaquim reads and rereads the texts.
Joaquim: It’s okay. Bobby said the same. It happens.
Joaquim sends it without thinking, then realizes what a cheap platitude it is. It’s never happened to him, after all.
Reid: So, if I haven’t scared you away with my bad behavior
Reid lets that text hang, and Joaquim is pretty sure that it’s on purpose. Joaquim takes the bait and the offered change in tone.
Joaquim: Maybe bad behavior is what I want
He types quickly and then groans. Bobby shifts in his bed across the room, and Joaquim hopes he didn’t wake him up.
He follows up as fast as his fingers can text.
Joaquim: Okay that sounded worse than I meant it to
Reid: ;) Maybe I like worse too?
Joaquim buries his face in his pillow.
Joaquim: When can I see you again
He types before he can stop himself. Irritation over the situation is washed away by the way Reid makes him smile and then laugh at their ridiculous banter. He adds the missing question mark to the sentence and waits without breathing.
* * *
“Okay, so,” Reid says when Joaquim picks him up. He’s borrowed Nina’s car for the night. “What is your opinion on seafood?”
“I feel good about seafood,” Joaquim says.
“I mean, I think the menu has things other than seafood. Just, um, if you were a conscientious objector to eating the fish in the sea—”
“Reid,” Joaquim cuts off his nervous babbling. “I like it. I cannot wait to see where we’re going, because I’m starving.”
“Yeah, okay,” Reid says.
“You don’t have to be nervous,” Joaquim says, even as he admits to himself that he’s also a bit nervous.
“No, I know.” Reid flashes a look that Joaquim lets himself linger in: the way it sends a curl of heat through him, the delicious ice blue of his eyes, and his blonder-than-before hair.
“You changed your hair.”
“Oh, yeah.” Reid runs his fingers through his hair. “It was getting more black than blond. I did it before the party.”
“You don’t like it black?” Joaquim asks. He doesn’t remember it being blonder at the party. But the house was pretty dimly lit. “I mean, not that I don’t like your hair like this. I do.”
“Thanks,” Reid says.
“I’ve never dyed my hair.”
“Well, I think it’s perfect.” Reid winces. “That was—”
“Stop second-guessing yourself.” Joaquim puts a hand on Reid’s knee.
Reid squares his shoulders. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”
Joaquim squeezes his knee and then pulls his hand away before he does something stupid, like move it, cup Reid’s thigh, and let the imprint of his inseam burn its memory into his palm.
“All right.” Reid says. The window is open and, as Joaquim pulls
onto the Overseas Highway, the scratch of gravel and the roar of a motorcycle speeding past them swallow what he says next.
“I’m sorry?” Joaquim shifts closer. Reid smells good. He’s put on cologne, or perhaps used a different product when he showered. It’s subtle and smells fresh and light, mildly floral.
“I made a reservation at Pearson’s on the Bay.”
“Oh, wow.” Joaquim gestures at his plain dark-wash jeans. “Am I dressed appropriately?”
“No, you look good,” Reid says. Joaquim stops at a red light. Reid takes the opportunity to catch his gaze, then deliberately lets his eyes travel over Joaquim’s body, slowly enough to send heat all through him. Joaquim exhales, then clears his throat when the light turns green.
“I asked,” Reid continues.
“Huh?”
“If there was a dress code.”
“Oh,” Joaquim says, catching the conversational thread again. It’s hard, when he’s… well, getting hard. The weight and heat of Reid’s eyes, dark-rimmed and intentionally promising, make Joaquim want to be reckless. Joaquim isn’t reckless with boys. “Um, sure.” He shifts, and Reid snickers. Joaquim catches his eye again before Reid winks. Joaquim risks another touch, this time a little bolder. It’s his turn to turn up the heat in this ping-pong game of increased confidence and flirtation.
He wasn’t planning to sleep with Reid tonight, but Joaquim is happy to go where the night takes them. Despite his initial hesitation, Joaquim senses potential for fun, for trouble, for recklessness in Reid’s body. He saw it at Delia’s friend’s party before Reid got sloppy; Joaquim enjoyed his confidence, his easy smiles and abandon.
Joaquim orders water and peruses the beer menu. To his surprise, Reid orders an Arnold Palmer.
“No wonder you came down here,” Joaquim says. His attempt to keep laughter in fails; it clearly paints his voice. “Arnold Palmer. I’m surprised we didn’t come for the senior discount dinner.”
“Oh, shut up,” Reid says. His foot nudges Joaquim’s. “I like them.”
“Retirees?”
Unselfconscious and utterly lovely, Reid’s laughter fills the half-empty restaurant. “I do like old people,” Reid confesses, “but I was mostly referring to Arnold Palmers.”
