No Turning Back

by Jerry Hastings

  Gary sat and said, “I think I know one thing which we can do.”

  “And what would that be?” I asked, feeling my heart race as I felt my hope growing. Maybe, after all, he didn’t have to move away? However, that was just unlikely. His parents made the choice, and now there was not much we could about that.

  Even if we were to continue our relationship through letters, that was never going to be the same as seeing him face to face every day, because I was going to need that. I needed to see him, and to be with him, and to hug and embrace him whenever I felt like doing said things. Sending and receiving letters would be nice, but it would be a far cry from having him around.

  Gavin stood up and walked to the window, and I sat to watch him better. He stuck his hand out and cut two lengths of very thin branches, and then tied them so that he had two small circles. He showed them to me, his hand holding them, and then said, “We need to marry here so that we never feel separated.”

  He was holding rings made of thin branches, and despite how rough and weird that looked to me, I still found it cute that he went through that trouble just to make them. However, I could not quite believe that he was going to… propose to me at this time. Even though we knew each other and loved one another, it didn’t make sense for him to simply do that… or did it?

  “Marry? Are you proposing to me?” I said, and each word felt difficult to pronounce.

  His eyes didn’t change. He was being serious about that. With this, maybe we could be forever together, and that perhaps it would not feel like he just left and was never going to come back again.

  “Do you accept me, Luca?” He asked, now kneeling in front of me, his hand holding one of the rings.

  I didn’t know what to say. Things just changed so much for me in such a short period of time. No more than two hours ago, I was thinking about how much my life sucked, and how I didn’t have a chance with this guy, and now he was proposing to marry me, even though he was leaving to a place neither of us knew about, and that we were never going to marry for real in the outside world because it was outlawed.

  But his proposition still warmed my heart. Here stood before me the first man to see me for who I really was, and to proceed with proposing to me as if we lived in a different world, with different people, and with citizens willing to accept love no matter how it came to be.

  “Gavin… I don’t even know what to say,” I said, but my hand was already reaching for the ring that he was holding on the open palm of his hand.

  “Just a yes would be sufficient for me,” he said, and then smiled.

  How could I say no to him? I took the ring from his hand, and then slid it on my finger. I took the other ring from him, opened his hand and slid it on his finger. Gavin stood up, and looked down at me. His eyes were full of love, and I felt that, this moment, neither of us were going to forget it.

  “But, how is this really going to help us? You know that I don’t even know where you are going to.”

  Gavin shook his head slightly and said, “This will be a constant reminder of the promise that we have made for one another. We are unofficially married right now, but when you look at this ring made of the branch that I got from the tree, you are always going to remember this moment, and what it means for us. Then, we will find one another, I am sure of it. This world is too small for that not to happen.”

  I smiled and kissed him, my finger feeling the ring that I had slid on it. It was, indeed, a constant reminder that we had just married, and that despite what happened, we were going to find one another one day.

  Chapter 3

  His Return

  It had been over 10 years since I saw Gavin for the last time. I watched, from a distance, him departing with his parents into the plane; he managed to tell me when he was leaving in time for me to be there. He really went somewhere that I was never going to be able to see him. That country. It was too far. It was Germany, and I was never going to have enough money to go there, and even if I did, I didn’t know where he would be living there.

  I should have given him my address so that he could send me letters, but I didn’t. The thought didn’t cross my mind. I was so lost and my mind, so occupied with the unofficial marriage we had, that I didn’t think about doing something as simple as that, which would have changed the years that I spent without seeing him.

  My life eventually kind of moved on from that magical moment, but I didn’t forget it. The ring he made for me was a constant reminder of the promise we had made for one another. When I was getting dressed in the morning, or going to bed, or taking something from the drawer, I always held the ring in my hand and admired it for some minutes before putting it back. It looked older now, and it seemed it could break easily, but it was for those reasons that I put it inside a small container made of glass. It protected it from the outside environment.

  I graduated from college, found a good line of work, and invested in it, and now I had more money than I needed. Things were working out pretty well for me, especially now that I had everything that I could ask for in terms of what money could buy.

  Even though I was doing well for myself, I didn’t find a boyfriend, or married another person, not that the last thing was ever going to happen, despite gay marriage now being possible. Congress ruled it okay recently, but I was just… incapable of finding someone else to be my better half.

  Gavin was still in my mind, and I always thought about him and what the unofficial marriage - or promise that we were going to have a proper marriage one day - meant for me. He was just… so much what I wished in my life, what I needed, and I missed him so much. I didn’t know much about his life other than what we talked about before his inevitable departure, but I still felt like we had known one another for years.

  When I stepped into the bar, my mind still thinking about those things, I wished he could come back one day, but that was just… impossible. The bar was crowded, with people at all sides and spots, and there was just one place where I could sit to spend some time and forget a little bit about my job. I was tired of all the bickering and complaints from one of my clients.

  I sat on the stool and ordered some whiskey from the barman. It was Friday, and I still lived in the same city. I didn’t move from it because that didn’t feel right, and also because it was not needed. This was where I began to make enough money to live the life I wanted to have, and I was not about to go elsewhere because it might be better or make me forget the bad things that happened here.

  I was drinking the whiskey I ordered when I turned my head to the side and someone new sat beside me. I looked at him, and I didn’t know why, but I felt that I knew that man somehow. He felt familiar, but that could not be. I didn’t remember his face. He could be Gabriel, my best friend that moved to a nearby city when he graduated from college, or someone else. He was certainly not Gavin, because he was so much different from this man.

  If he was someone I knew, then at least he deserved to know that I was sitting beside him. Maybe he was Gabriel and we could talk about our lives now, and how each of us looked so different.

  “Hey, man. Do you want a drink?” I asked because I noticed that he had not ordered anything.

  The guy turned his head, and it was then that I almost fainted. That man… he was Gavin! I could not believe! He looked so changed, with a beard now - a full one - and his face had some wrinkles, and he looked so much older. I eyed him up and down, and still thought that he looked almost nothing like the Gavin that I knew. The only things that were similar were his nose, mouth, and eyes.

  His eyes widened when he looked at me. Gavin noticed it was me, his unofficial husband, the one who was told that we were married, and that we were never going to forget one another.

  “Luca!” He shouted, drawing the attention from some of the people around us. “Uh, wow! I didn’t think I was going to find you here. I thought I was never going to see you again.”

  I was still trying to come to terms with him being here of all places, but
I still found this moment so weird and good at the same time. “No kidding. I thought I was coming here just for a drink, but it seems that fate wanted tonight to be different for me.”

  Gavin eyed me up and down, and then said, “You look so different now. Ten years have passed, right? No wonder I didn’t realize it was you when I sat down here.”

  “So, what are you doing here? I know for a fact that you don’t live here anymore.”

  “Actually, it seems that is about to change pretty soon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My… wife and kids want to move here,” he said before gulping, and I immediately understood why his face turned pale.

  Wife and kids? How and when did that happen? What happened to his promise of finding me again and marrying me?

  “But-” I was going to say, but then he lifted his hand, and told me, “Look, I know that we promised to marry one another, and that what happened between us was magical, but I… moved on, man. I lived in a different country, and had a different life there.”

  His words hit me hard. I was dumbfounded about what he said, and the look in his eyes... They were confirming his statement. He didn’t love me anymore, or did he still? I didn’t think that it was just possible for two lovers to forget one another like that, not when we shared a moment so much more important than anything we had before then.

  “Gavin, I didn’t forget about our marriage… or promise that we were going to get married one day. I still kept the ring with me. Look,” I said before producing the ring in its glass container, and showing it to him on the palm of my hand.

  I noticed...something in his eyes. A change, maybe? Perhaps he was finally remembering what he felt when he made the promise? I could not be sure, but I was certain that he was not just the husband of a beautiful woman that he was trying to show me. That was not the Gavin that I knew, and I doubted that he had changed so much to the point of becoming another person entirely.

  Gavin grabbed the glass contained and held it in front of his eyes, looking at the ring that he made over 10 years ago, and that meant so much to him back then. “I… fuck,” he said, and I wanted to know what he was going to say, but I didn’t know if I would be doing the right thing by asking.

  But I had to muster up the courage anyway, and thus said, “What? Did-”

  “I lost the ring that I was carrying with me. It happened… I don’t remember anymore when that happened, but yeah… fuck, you are never going to forgive me for that...”

  I was angry because of that, yes, but he was still the man that came up with the idea of using the unofficial marriage as a way to connect us, so I didn’t hold what happened against him. I was okay with letting that slide, despite how hard it pierced my heart. I thought that the moment we shared in the house in the woods meant a lot more for him.

  Maybe I was just being me, believing that people cared about me, but I didn’t want to think that was the case here. It could not be.

  “It looks like the same ring from 10 years ago...” he said, his hand still holding the glass container, and his eyes looking at the ring.

  “Almost like new,” I said, looking at his eyes and trying to figure out, from that, if I still had a chance with this man. Still, since he had a wife and kids now, what chance did I really have? Probably none, but I was not about to give up on the only man that showed genuine interest and love for me. I was so tired from all the people trying to use me, and Gavin was so different from them. I didn’t want to lose him forever.

  Gavin handed the glass container with the ring back to me, and I said, “You don’t really have to make a choice or do anything right now. Let’s spend some time as good friends this night, and then… I don’t know.”

  I smiled, but didn’t know if it was convincing enough for him. Right now, I felt as if I was just forcing this situation on him, and that Gavin actually wanted to go elsewhere, even though he didn't drink anything yet.

  “Yes, I think that would be good,” he said, avoiding my eyes for the first time that night.

  Could that mean that… he was feeling ashamed of what happened? Maybe I could use that to my advantage, to make him rethink his life, but that... was just wrong. I was not that heartless, and I was not going to destroy his married life because of my selfishness.

  “Okay, so let’s talk and drink. I think that’s the best thing we can do right now.”

  At hearing those words, Gavin lifted his head with a shy smile on his face. I needed to show that I was not affected by finding out what happened to him, and that I was not going to let something like that get in the way of having a couple of good hours with him.

  We drank and chatted. Gavin was quite the chatter, and willing to tell me so many things about his life. He didn’t change much from his 10 years younger version in terms of personality, which was just like me in that regard. I also talked quite a bit, and told him what happened to me during the time that we were separated.

  “So, you never really had a boyfriend or married after gay marriage was ruled okay by the Congress?” He asked, his hand holding the glass of beer that I had bought for him.

  “No, I didn’t. It didn’t feel right, you know? I was always just…”

  “Thinking about me…” He continued, and I looked into his eyes and nodded.

  “Still, even though we fucked, I am still going to consider you a virgin,” he said, ending the uncomfortable moment we created, and smiling. Ahhhh… that smile was so beautiful and warming. I could almost… kiss him right now, and just start a new life with him.

  “No way, man. I am not a virgin anymore,” I said, smiling too, but not adding the last part where he was the one who took my virginity. It was already enough that he told that loud enough for other people in the bar to hear us. I wanted to be discreet.

  We talked some more, and he spoke to me about his family, wife and kids, and why his parents decided to move away. I learned so much about him, but still felt like I didn’t really know him anymore.

  It was almost three in the morning. People were already leaving the bar, and its owner was looking at us as if he wanted to ask when we were going out too. I looked at Gavin, and asked, “Do you want to spend some time with me outside? Just… walking and talking some more. I want to show you a nice spot that we didn’t have back when you were still living here.”

  Gavin put his empty glass on the table and said, “Sure thing. I still have some free time to spend with you.”

  Chapter 4

  One Chance?

  We left the bar, much to the relief of its owner, and I took him to a spot a couple of blocks away. The city we lived in had always been a small one, and despite all the years, it didn’t change much, but this spot… that changed, and it looked stunning tonight for me, despite having come here so many times before.

  It was a place that I liked to walk by. It had a river that was no more than a calming stream. Down there, there was a sidewalk by the river with some tables and chairs made of cement. Some glowing orange lights illuminated the place, making it look even more beautiful than it already was. At night, it looked so different and better than during the daytime, and so romantic too.

  “Looks amazing. I can’t believe that, after I moved, they built this,” Gavin said, looking down and also at the neighboring city out in the distance.

  “It really is, but you know that your presence here makes this spot so much better for me,” I said.

  “Luca… I really like you, but…”

  “What?”

  “I can’t continue what we had. It would not be right.”

  I grabbed his hands and looked into his eyes. “Give me one chance. Give ourselves one chance, and I am sure that you are not going to regret that.”

  Gavin withdrew his hands and said, “Luca, are you even hearing the kind of thing that you are saying?”

  I looked down, realizing that I was pushing him too much. I concluded, once again, that it was not right to steal him from his wife. We had our chance… and
that was it.

  Gavin put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Let’s go down there and walk some more. There is so much more that I want to know about you.”

  I was feeling a bit down after what just happened, but his invitation cheered me up, and I led him downstairs. Gavin and I walked some more, and sometimes we would stop to feel the water of the stream. Despite being nighttime, the water looked clear and beautiful.

  Gavin and I were tired, so we sat on a park bench, and just continued to contemplate the night, the other city in the distance, and spend some time there without talking this time. We had already talked about everything that happened during the 10 years that we had not seen each other, and now… all that was left was to decide what to do, and if we were really going to give up on that dream we once had.

  My hand touched his, and I moved it away. I didn’t want to feel like I was taking advantage of him, but then, his hand looked for mine, and he grabbed it. I didn’t move it away from him this time, and let that speak for itself. His hand caressed mine for a good amount of time, and it gave me some hope, even though I knew very well that he was never going to walk away on his wife.