Rough

by Hayden Hunt

  “It’ll be nice to be here,” I told him. “Like old times.”

  It was funny; the only thing I was looking for when I decided to go back home for Thanksgiving was a sense of familiarity. And I was getting that more here than I ever would have staying with my own family.

  Even walking up the stairs gave me this weird pang of nostalgia. All those times we had run up and down them, getting to Ethan’s room. Those times we were doing something we shouldn’t have been and carefully listened for his mom’s footsteps on the stairs so we wouldn’t be caught.

  “So, where are you going to sleep? In your old room or…?” I asked.

  “Well, originally Ashley was going to sleep in here but I’m thinking it might be slightly awkward for the two of you to sleep in here by yourselves. So maybe I’ll sleep in here instead?”

  “Oh!” I answered, completely caught off guard. “You’ll sleep in here!”

  He noticed my awkwardness. “Or I can totally sleep on the couch, if you’d be more comfortable with that.”

  “Oh, no, not at all!” I said in an overly pleasant voice. “It’s totally fine if you sleep here! No problem at all.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked slowly. “Because it’s really no problem—”

  “No, no, absolutely not. Sleep in here. How many times have we shared a room? It’s no big deal.” I smiled.

  And we had slept in the same room a lot, but I did feel awkward for some reason. Well, I guess in our high school years I had felt awkard sometimes too. Ever since I was old enough to have developed a crush on him, I’d felt weird about things.

  Some nights I would stay up while he was asleep and catch myself just staring at him. That sounds so creepy, but I don’t mean it like that. It wasn’t that I was trying to stare at him like a weirdo. It was just that I couldn't sleep with him next to me; my mind was racing with thoughts of him.

  I was worried that this was going to happen again. I'd only been with him for about fifteen minutes now, and already a lot of the old feelings I had were rushing back to me. Like, fuck, man, why did he have to be so damn cute?

  Ethan grinned at me. “This is going to be so great! Just like old times.” He sat down on the bed opposite of me. “Can I tell you something kind of weird?” he asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “Ever since we’ve, you know, grown up and became adults… I felt like I haven’t had any friends as good as I did when I was young. I don’t know if I’m explaining that right. I guess I’m just trying to say that in adulthood, it’s been hard to get close to people the way I used to when I was a kid.”

  “No, I know exactly what you mean!” I said, happy to hear someone else share this sentiment. “I always thought that when you became an adult, you’d still be able to find plenty of friends. Or, at least, when you date someone you’d end up as close to them as you are to your best friends. But fuck, it’s been impossible to find that.”

  “Tell me about it!” he agreed. “I’ve done a lot of dating and let me tell you, emotional intimacy is not easy to come by.”

  Hearing him say that was both exciting to me and a stab in the chest. On the one hand, he hadn’t been able to find emotional intimacy with anyone else. And on the other hand, imagining him dating multiple women and knowing I would never be one of them sucked.

  “Oh, yeah? I wondered about that. I never saw you dating anyone on social media… Or, uh…” I realized how awkward that sounded. “Not that I’m online stalking you or anything.”

  He laughed. “No, don’t worry, I get it. I’m nosy too. I won't pretend I haven’t looked up your profile a few times to check in.”

  I could feel the blush rising through my cheeks. He’d checked up on me, really?

  “But I guess I’ve just tried to keep all my casual dating under wraps,” he continued. “My mom gets real excited every time there is someone new in my life, you know. Better to not get her too stoked on anyone since they don’t usually last.”

  “Yeah, I feel it,” I agreed, though I didn’t. My parents could give a fuck less who I was dating. They never even bothered to add me on social media, though I’d seen their profiles in my ‘suggested friends’ lists before.

  I heard a vibrating noise but knew it wasn’t my cell phone as I had the ringer on. Ethan reached into his pocket to look at his.

  “Speaking of my mom, she wants me to go pick up a few things at the grocery store.” He groaned. “Uh, well, I’ll go do that and why don't you just make yourself at home? You can take a shower, take a nap, hang out with my family, do whatever you want.”

  “Oh, okay, sure. Sounds good,” I said, though I did feel a little awkward hanging out here without him. I would have definitely preferred tagging along with him to the grocery store, but he didn’t invite me and I knew better than to invite myself.

  Ethan gave me one last smile before he left the room. “It’s good to see you, man.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “It’s good to see you too.”

  16

  Ethan

  As I left the room, I could easily notice the hesitation on Daniel’s face. He didn’t want to be left here alone with my family. I should have just invited him with me, but I really didn’t want to.

  I wanted to keep spending time with him; it was nothing he was doing wrong, but there were some people I was scared to run into. People who I’d rather not have see us both together.

  Oh, that sounds bad, really bad. Like I was embarrassed of him or something. But I wasn’t! In fact, nothing could have been farther from the truth.

  Daniel moved away pretty fast. Right after the summer we graduated, he went away to college and did everything he could not to return. And I knew why—because he didn’t want to be back at his family’s house.

  But God, I missed him so bad after that. I stayed in town for a few years, going to community college, as did a few of our other friends. And even the friends who did go away for college came back every holiday and summer break to visit their parents. So we all saw each other quite often.

  Though no friend ever became as close to me as Daniel was, I did have some other best friends who I bonded with after high school. And these friends spent a lot of time drunk with me, where I’d told them some… Well, some things I wished I could take back.

  Most importantly, I told them about how I felt about Daniel. How deeply in love with him I was… How I could never tell him because I knew he wouldn’t feel the same.

  Yeah, embarrassing drunken shit. The kind of thoughts that a sober me would do anything to keep to myself. Ugh, what had I even been thinking?

  And these were the people who I was afraid to run into. I wasn’t sure how many of them were in town right now, but most of my friends came back for Thanksgiving. None of them were very mature guys. I wouldn’t put it past them to make some kind of joke if they saw us together. Something that would reveal how I felt about Daniel.

  God, I was so fucking happy to see him. I honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever see him again. When I saw him sitting at the bench, my heart soared.

  Although when I heard the reason he was sitting there, my heart broke for him. I hated that his parents treated him this way. Who could do that to their own fucking kid? They were such pieces of shit. He deserved so much better.

  Daniel was definitely the one that got away from me. It took me way too long to realize how I felt for him and by then… Well, it was way too late.

  I couldn’t be too hard on myself though. The only reason I didn’t realize how I felt about him sooner was because I was going through the whole questioning my sexuality thing, as a lot of teenagers do in high school.

  Daniel had known for a long time who he was and that he was gay. It was easy for him. He liked men and only men; it was obvious to me. Things weren’t as easy for me.

  I’d always liked girls. As friends, as lovers. I’d always been able to comfortably date women. And since that was the norm and that was what most people chose to do, I dated women and ignored any ot
her feelings I had.

  But though I liked girls, I liked men too. Even as kids with Daniel, I always had feelings that went beyond simple friendship. And I knew that. But I pushed it down. I was feeling confused. How could I like the girls I was dating but also like him?

  Being bisexual wasn’t the easiest thing. For a lot of women, you weren’t straight enough. You didn’t fit well enough into their mold of what a man should be like and they wouldn’t date you because of that.

  On the flip side, you were accused of being too straight for the gay community. I’d even heard some people call bi men greedy. That we shouldn’t take gay men when it was way easier for us to date women.

  As if I could possibly control who I fell in love with? I may be capable of dating both men and women, but I wasn’t in control of my emotions when I fell in love with another man… Like Daniel.

  He was the only man I’d ever fallen in love with, actually. Hell, he may be the only person I’d fallen in love with. I’d dated both men and women, I’d liked both men and women, I’d been happy with people of all genders.

  But I think I’d only ever loved one person.

  And, to my knowledge, he’d never had any idea. Which was helped by the fact that I never told him I was bisexual. I really didn't come to terms with it until after high school, when we had already faded apart. I mean, I knew about it earlier than that, but I wasn’t ready to admit it to the world. Or even really admit it to myself, I guess.

  These days I was pretty open with most people. My friends, my family, they all knew. But I did my best to keep it off social media because there were some extended family and coworkers that I’d rather not know. Not that I thought they’d react badly; I honestly didn’t know how they’d react at all. But I didn’t feel it was any of their business, anyway. It would only make things awkward.

  This was why I did my best to keep all my relationships off social media, including the ones I had with girls. I mean, if you’re a bisexual guy who dates both men and women, but only announces your relationship with women, other gay men get really suspicious that you’re still in the closet. So it was better to just claim nobody then have to claim everybody. Though I’d had boy and girlfriends who really hated this about me.

  But, truthfully, there wasn’t really anyone I dated seriously enough that I wanted to talk about them on Facebook, anyway. I had never even brought someone home to meet my family. All my relationships were short lived and often ended in disaster.

  Usually that was because the other person wanted me to commit and I just never could. And it wasn’t like I was a player or anything. I wasn’t specifically trying to avoid settling down.

  On the contrary, I actually really wanted that. I’d like to be married, I’d like to have kids, I’d like to be able to quit bar hopping every weekend in hopes of finding someone I clicked with.

  Which was really the issue. I didn’t find anyone that I clicked with. Every one that I met was just… I didn’t want to say that they weren’t up to my standards, because that wasn’t true at all. I’d met some great people with great qualities who, theoretically, I should have really been into.

  But I never was. There was never that chemistry that I desperately desired. I wanted to be with someone I loved. I wanted to be thrilled to wake up to someone in the morning and go to bed with them at night. I wanted happiness like I’d never felt it before.

  Actually, I wanted happiness exactly like I’d felt before… with Daniel. And only with Daniel.

  So, I know what you’re probably thinking. If I’d had these strong feelings for Daniel why hadn’t I just stepped up and told him how I felt? It wasn’t like I was a shy guy or anything. I was actually pretty extroverted and I had no problem making a move on someone. I was pretty confident; I knew I was a good looking and charismatic guy. I didn’t get turned down often.

  But I knew I'd be turned down by Daniel.

  I still remembered the night he first told me that he was gay. Just like when I saw him earlier today, my heart leapt at the news. I couldn’t have been more thrilled.

  I was expecting him to confess to me that he liked men and then to tell me that he liked me. That all the feelings that had been building up inside me had been building inside him too. I thought it would be the end of our friendship because it was the beginning of our romantic relationship.

  But that confession never came. He told me he was gay, and that was it. He never even hinted at liking me.

  Still, him coming out was this big confession for him so I was completely supportive of him. I did my best to hide all my disappointment and I didn’t dare ask if he’d ever seen me in a romantic light.

  He would have taken it the wrong way, anyway. Like I was some paranoid straight guy who didn’t like thinking of his best friend having a crush on him. Which couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

  So, for a while after he told me, I did my best to bury my feelings. At first I didn’t think it’d be that hard, as I’d been burying my feelings for him (and for men in general) my whole life. I could just go back to that and we could be friends the way we always had been.

  But it wasn’t that easy. Once I knew he was gay, that theoretically there would be a chance for us, I became absolutely obsessed with the thought of me and him ending up together.

  At one point, I even did something that was lightweight uncool. I asked a mutual friend, a girl friend, if she would talk to him for me. Not directly, but if she could ask him if he’d ever had feelings for me.

  Her name was Maya and in high school, she and Daniel had been really close. He told her everything he told me, pretty much. Which only made what I did an even bigger invasion of privacy. The fact that his two closest friends made a plan to weasel the truth out of him was pretty damn shitty.

  But we did it with the best of intentions. I had convinced myself that he was too shy to confess his feelings for me and I thought if I could know that telling him how I felt wasn’t going to ruin our relationship, we could be together. Maya really wanted us to be together. She thought we’d make the perfect couple.

  But the day she talked with him at her house after school, he vehemently denied ever have feelings for me. I still remember exactly what Maya told me he said, which I was pretty sure was word for word.

  “Maya, just because I like men doesn’t mean I’m comfortable being with any man there is. He’s my best friend. He’s been a brother to me since we were kids. I could never have feelings for him. He’s like my brother.”

  Maya was convinced he meant it and so was I. I was heartbroken for a long time after that, but I did my best to never let it show or allow it to break up our friendship. To compensate with losing the fantasy of us, I started to date a lot of people. As many people as I could.

  Though they never filled the hole.

  I was a mess for a long time after Daniel moved on, too. I always wanted to say something to him, always wanted to reconnect our relationship, but something held me back. I guess, in my mind, it was better to let him go live his life than be tortured by the thought of not being with him. I figured eventually, I’d move on. And that’d be best for the both of us.

  Except seeing him today, I realized I’d never moved on. He still did something to me that I could not explain.

  It was probably a mistake to invite him to stay with me. How was I going to be able to sleep in the same bedroom with him for the entire weekend and not spill my feelings? But I couldn’t just leave him outside his house like that, all sad and mopey and shit.

  Besides, maybe telling him my feelings now wasn’t the worst idea ever. The only reason I avoided it so long ago was because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship.

  But time and distance had already done that. If I told him how I felt and he rejected me completely, life would go back to the way it was. We’d be as distant as ever, but at least I’d have gained some closure.

  Though I wasn’t sure I even had the courage for that. Like I said, it’s usually no problem for me to ask
guys out, but being rejected by Daniel was going to sting a lot more. I guess we’d just have to see what happened.

  The grocery store was packed as all hell, which I expected it to be the day before Thanksgiving. Damn it, this was going to be fun.

  I only had three things on my list because my mom had done grocery shopping a week in advance as she always did, but I guess she ran out of eggs, butter, and milk.

  I didn't bother with a cart for these three things, just grabbed a basket, which would thankfully make it easier to worm my way through this sea of people.

  Thankfully all three items were in the same area of the store, of course, so it was pretty fast. I bumped into a few people, which I hated because I was weird about my personal space, but oh well, what was I gonna do?

  I was standing in an extremely long line when I heard a familiar voice call my name.

  “Ethan! Hey, Ethan!”

  I knew immediately who it was, and it was a little eerie since I’d literally just been thinking about her.

  “Maya, hey!” I said, giving her a hug as she walked up to me in the crowded line.

  I didn’t really keep in touch with Maya either over the years, but she was one of the people who always came home for the holidays so I had actually seen her quite a bit. We weren’t close anymore, but we usually found a way to catch up around this time of year.

  “I’m so glad I ran into you! I was going to text you and see if you were in town. A bunch of us are going to Rodey’s at eight tonight! You should totally come.”

  This was another thing we often did over the holiday breaks. We’d all meet up at the local bar and catch up, getting way too drunk. Usually it was the night after Thanksgiving though, so nobody had to experience Thanksgiving drunk.

  “Oh, nice! But I’m not sure I’m going to be able to go.”

  She looked surprised. I always went to these things.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Well, uh, actually… I kind of have somebody over at my house that I need to entertain,” I said shiftily, for some reason not wanting to say it was Daniel.