by Seth King
But I’m not. I’m with Thomas. And I need to remember that.
We head down the stairs to Fred’s, their glass-roofed café that serves the best chili in the world. The roof is covered in layers of snow, and the glass walls look out on a frozen forest scene. But we don’t have time to eat.
“Last ski shuttle of the afternoon leaving now for the resort,” the clerk says. “Anybody trying to go, get out there now.”
We lock eyes.
“Why not go to the lodge while we can?” he asks. “The ski resort makes the best blonde ale you’ll ever have. Let’s go!”
“But if we drink, I’m going to…want to do more bad stuff,” I say hesitantly. He smiles.
“Who said it was bad?”
The Beech Mountain Lodge is a cavernous building at the bottom of the ski mountain that looks straight up at the slopes, which are deserted today. On one side is a modern-yet-rustic bar, and we get some beers and then settle in front of the massive stone fireplace.
The fog parts, and for a moment we get a stunning vista of the ski resort. It rises over the rest of town in a criss-cross of trails and lifts and frosted pines, and along one side is a winding neighborhood of cute little vacation chalets. Norman Rockwell couldn’t have painted this, not with this light, not with this touch.
“Hey,” Thomas says, jumping over just as I start to sit down. He pulls out the glass I didn’t see, the glass I was just about to sit on and probably break. “Are you constantly trying to kill yourself?” he asks, looking worried, as he places it on a table. “This would’ve shattered. And on the way to Fred’s, you were walking in the middle of the damn road.”
“I didn’t know anyone was watching me, Grandma.”
“Well maybe if you took care of yourself, you wouldn’t need a minder.”
“Just shut up and look pretty. It’s what you do best, anyway.”
He stares into the fire and smiles. But soon that serious, heightened feeling settles over us again.
“What’s wrong?”
“Maybe we should…catch up?” he says.
“We don’t have to catch up. I know your life from Facebook. And I assume you’ve seen mine. We just don’t, or can’t, talk about it...”
“True,” he says. “I know you major in English, because you want to be a writer.”
“Not anymore,” I sigh. “That was when I believed you could ever make a living in the arts. My dad convinced me to get on the law school track. You know how he is.”
“Oh, God. You know I hate him.”
“Everyone does.”
“I think that’s dumb,” he tells me. “You should reconsider.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“No, seriously. Don’t let them stick you in the matrix. Don’t wake up every day and have to do something you hate.”
“And you’re one to talk?” I ask him. “Your major is in communications. Do you even know what you’re going to do?”
“No, but I do know I’ll never let them force me into a life I don’t want to live.”
“Ha! Joke of the century.”
“What does that mean?”
“You know what it means,” I say with an eye-roll. “You’re a very interesting person to be talking about ‘living lives we don’t want to live,’ that’s all.”
Judging by his face, he knows exactly what I’m talking about. “How dare you. What you do for money, and how you live your life, are two totally different things.”
A heavy silence hangs between us. “Are they, though?”
“Stop,” he says. “You know my situation. And you know what today means. You know what happened. We both know the real thing lurking underneath everything else. Ernestine.”
I shudder as my mind takes me back.
When we were in middle school, a man in our neighborhood divorced his wife and then began the process of transitioning. Whispers around town turned into a roar, but she didn’t seem to care – in fact, she looked happy and settled, for the first time in her life. This was well before RuPaul’s Drag Race, the rise of Lady Gaga and her Born This Way message, and the rest of the things that ushered in a more tolerant environment. In the end, she was killed on her front porch one morning, just shot to death while carrying groceries inside. (It was Valentine’s Day, actually, probably ten or eleven years ago.) The case was never even investigated enough for there to be any arrests – it was just put to bed.
I never forgot that day. I know Thomas didn’t, either. We never explicitly talked about it in depth, but I saw her in Thomas’ eyes all the time. She represented something terrifying to us: strike out on your own, make a move to chase your happiness, and you’ll get killed. Come to think of it, that’s probably why we had such a violently disgusted reaction to our hookup – in both of our minds, we were going to become poor Ernestine, God rest her soul. We were going to be taken down for attempting to fly.
He takes a long, deep swallow from his beer. Then he leans closer.
“Have you been with another guy since me?” he asks very quietly, and I nearly choke on my beer. “Um…no. Have you?”
“Nope. The urge has been there, though. …Has it been for you?”
“…Yes. To be honest, yes.”
“Interesting.”
I chew on my lip. “Do you think…”
“Yes?” he asks.
“Do you really think we wanted guys, per se, or do you just think we wanted…each other?”
He leans back. “I don’t know. That’s the question, isn’t it? Is love attached to any sort of gender or identity?”
“It’s hard to tell these days. What was your reason for turning away?”
“You’re partly right,” he says, looking around to make sure nobody can hear. “Ernestine. It freaked me out. They didn’t even investigate her death – they just let it go. I guess that was a warning sign to me.”
“I know what you mean,” I breathe, staring into the fire. “Underneath a lot of things, I’m afraid of everyone leaving me. I was afraid that if anyone found out about what’d happened, they’d be disgusted and walk away. Turn their back on me. But lately I’m seeing it more clearly now, for some reason.”
“Explain, please?”
“I got so afraid, and that fear hardened down into disgust inside me. Whenever I looked at you, I didn’t see you. I saw the thing we did together, and the fear it created.”
For a moment I think he’s going to finally open up to me, tell me he feels the same. But he doesn’t. He just closes his mouth.
“Why did you leave me like that?” I ask suddenly. “Why did you just turn your back on me? Why couldn’t we have worked it out? Why did it have to be so…extreme?”
“You know why,” he says. “Fear.”
I sigh again. “Where do you think we go from here?”
“I don’t know. We fought like cats and dogs even before that whole thing happened. Why do you pry like this, anyway?”
“How do you sit here so complacently?” I ask him. “Things are…happening. Maybe we should figure it out.”
He peers over at me. “Sounds like you’ve been thinking about this a lot.”
“Well…maybe I have. I’ve been a little low lately, a little…inquisitive. I’m kind of sick of the way I’ve been living.”
“In what sense?”
I cross my leg, pull it in. “We were raised behind a white picket fence, but it’s starting to look like prison bars. I mean, look at me – I’m lost. I don’t know how to be an adult. I don’t know who I am, or even who I want to be. Every day I go sit in classes that my dad is making me take. Sometimes I think I’m on the wrong path, the totally wrong one. Sometimes I think I need to make a course correction.”
Suddenly his phone lights up. It’s a text from some girl named Katy, and there are flirty emoji faces all over the screen.
I look away and set my jaw. I try not to get angry, because truthfully I don’t have a right to be. So he’s talking to girls – of course he is. It’s n
one of my business.
But really, at this moment it is my business. He’s sitting here, wasting my time once again. We have half a decade of unfinished business to sift through, and we have half a day to do it. We’re finally having a heart to heart, and he’s getting cute texts from some random girl?
Maybe I’m an idiot. Maybe we hate each other for a reason. Maybe we never should’ve spoken to each other at all. Instead of some holiday extravaganza, maybe I should be sitting on my ass back in the condo, watching TV by the fire with some hot chocolate. Why do I do these things to myself? I knew we were going to go at it, like always. Why am I so intent on maintaining my own misery?
“Oh,” he says, fumbling to hide the screen. “Um, sorry, that was from a friend.”
Anger flares in me, sharp and hot. “Yeah, sure, a friend who sends you hearts.” I motion my body away.
Then I motion back. “I mean, how could you be doing that? While we’re sitting here talking about everything? It’s fine, but can’t you just wait? For the sake of courtesy?”
“Um, I hate to break it to you, but we haven’t spoken in four years.”
“I hate to break it to you,” I mimic, “but you’re a narcissist.”
He scoffs. “What? Don’t you know what that means?”
“I mean, not the dictionary definition, no…”
“It means you are incapable of loving other people.”
“Fine. I don’t think that. I just think you aren’t particularly careful with other people’s feelings. And never have been?”
“What does that mean?”
The beer is making me bolder. “You know exactly what it means. You’re the one who put up the wall in the beginning. You knew I’d be open to talk. You knew I’d pick up the friendship again. But you never came around.”
“How was I supposed to know all that if you never told me? You never put in any effort, either.”
“Well I-”
He drops his phone, and the screen shows that she just texted again.
“Okay, maybe I do think that narcissist thing about you.”
He slides it into his pocket and sighs. “God. Why does this even matter now? We wasted so much time. Why not ask me all these questions years ago?”
“Because we couldn’t be in the same room without literally getting into a fist fight.”
“Well we’re growing up. Let’s stop.”
I cross my arms and turn away. “We can’t do this, anyway. I have to protect myself.”
“From what?”
From loving you again, I think to myself. But I temper my language. “From…you.”
He turns, too, chewing on his lip. But soon he turns back. “Look. It’s Valentine’s Day. And we’re stuck with each other.”
And the only thing worse than being with him would be being without him, back in my room, alone. But now that the ball is rolling, I want to finish whatever is happening. I can’t live with him, I can’t kill him, and I can’t fuck him.
Not yet, at least.
He inhales. “And…you did have a point about how we were best friends…the closest people in the world. You know what’s funny? If I ever had a soul mate, it would have probably been you. In the friend sense, I mean.”
My face goes numb. “Okay?”
And then it happens: a few tables away, directly in front of the fireplace, a guy in a leather jacket bends down on one knee and proposes. His fiancé yelps, jumps up and down, and accepts. As friends come out of the shadows to applaud and take photos, Thomas and I glance at each other, and then away again.
“God,” he sighs. “This used to be my favorite holiday besides Christmas. Why did we ever let the fun get stolen away from Valentine’s Day, anyway?”
“Because single people like me have to look at all the posts of flowers and candy and all that bullshit, and feel like pathetic losers for being single?”
He rises from his chair. “Well you know what? I don’t give a shit. I’m having a fun Valentine’s Day. We can still salvage this. Come on. I’ll prove you right – it isn’t such a horrible day. Actually, you’re about to have the best Valentine’s Day you’ve ever had. Even if you’re single.”
“Thanks for the reminder!”
His face softens. “No, really. I’m going to stop by Fred’s again to get some wine before the storm closes it for good. Wanna come?”
“…And then?” I ask with a gulp, but suddenly he looks just as nervous as I do.
“And then we’ll go from there, I guess. But I’ve had enough stress. Wine and maybe the Jacuzzi, back at the hotel – what do you say? A friendly Valentine’s Day. For old times’ sake?”
“Okay, fine,” I finally say. “But only because of the wine.”
June 2014
“Wade?”
“Yes?” I answer, as we both pant.
“I…I haven’t had enough of this yet. Can we do more?”
“Sure. I don’t know how, though.”
“Well I do. Hey. My friend Emmett – he did a sixty-nine with his girl one time. How do you think that feels?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well…wanna find out? I’ve seen porn movies…”
In the shape of a sixty-nine, he turns around and lays on top of me. His body is warm and perfect against mine, and his dick is at the perfect angle to go down my throat.
“Fuck,” he says, his face out of view.
“What?”
“This is just really hot. Even though my ass is in your face.”
“And that’s why it’s hot. Now get to sucking, okay, freak?”
I moan as he takes me in, and I do the same to him – and he moans, too.
This is honestly too much, him choking on me as I choke on him, too. I’ve never felt anything this erotic. Our bodies writhe and twitch each other’s, and I can smell his human smells coming from between his legs – he smells like sweat and musk, and it is perfect.
“Ugh, I’m close,” he says, and I murmur an agreement. “Let’s come together?”
I open my legs a little, and soon my whole body contracts and goes numb. Just as I feel my seed squirt down his throat, I taste his own exploding into my own, too. I pump him as I suck every last drop – it really does taste good, like salty cream or something.
Afterward, he doesn’t move. He just lays there, staring up at the ceiling.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, but his eyes are the size of plates.
“Wait – what the fuck did we just do?”
8
When I call Lo during my break from Thomas, she answers the phone sobbing.
“What the hell is it?” I ask. “Is Grandpa okay?”
“It’s just so sad,” she wails.
“What is?”
“Legally Blonde,” she sniffles. “I haven’t seen this movie since I got my heart broken for the first time by that fucking asshole, Jake. Now I feel every emotion of the breakup scene. I never got it before. Warner just dumped her high and dry, like she was trash! Now I know why she can’t get out of bed. Oh my God, this is just so tragic! Poor Elle!”
“Gather yourself,” I say as I roll my eyes. “And please see a shrink.”
“Shut up,” she says as she finally calms down. “I told you, I’m not venturing out into that romance fest today, and this just came on TV. What’s going on? Are you still alive? Is he?”
“Yes. But…something’s happening here. I think…”
“What? You realized you loved him?” she asks offhandedly. I stop breathing.
“Um, excuse me?”
“Wade, take it from someone who’s seen every romantic comedy ever produced. Being around you two was beautiful. You two were the prettiest couple I had ever seen, and you didn’t even know you were a couple. I feel disgusting right now just thinking about how hot he is.”
“What? I love him? Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?”
“Because I kind of assumed you already knew. You know, like, deep down.”
“Ugh. I gu
ess I did. Or maybe I don’t. Maybe we’re just-”
“Hey. No lies here. Just honesty.”
My shoulders fall. I smile. My face warms. “Okay. I love him, Lo. I don’t know what this is. But…I feel his heart beating inside my skin.”
She sighs. “Jesus. Stop. I already felt single before. Now I feel like the ultimate crazy cat lady. You two…ugh.”
“What in the world are we supposed to do?”
“Love each other,” she says. “What else were you going to do? It’s not like you can turn it off.”
And I try, but I cannot think of a response. Because she is right.
“Actually,” she says, “I have another prediction.”
“Okay? What is it?”
“You two are soul mates, but you will never end up together.”
My shoulders sink. “What? Why would you say that?”
“Everyone falls for someone like Thomas once in their life. Everyone has a Thomas McPherson. God knows I did. Someone withholding. Someone who loves you back, but will never allow themselves to admit it. It doesn’t change the love you have, and will probably always have together, but…it usually doesn’t work out with the Thomas-type figure.”
“Why…why not?”
“He’ll try, but he’ll never change. He’ll always be one step away from you. One step removed. You’ll tell yourself over and over again that he’ll change, but people rarely do. Especially men. You’ll convince yourself you can stay friends, but it’ll be torture. One day you’ll learn.”
I realize I am biting my lip so hard, it is bleeding a little. “How the hell do you know this?”
“Did you not watch me fall apart after David?”
“Honestly, there were so many guys for a minute there, I can’t recall specific ones.”
“Oh, shut up. But…real talk, I’ve been there. You’ll see. Good luck, kiddo. Oh, and don’t forget to get some Valentine’s sex.”
“That’s disgusting! You’re my sister, why do you even talk about these things with me?”
“Because I’m a sicko. Have fun, brat. I’ve got some romantic comedies to hate-watch.”
~
