Silas
“So…”Ev said, buckling his seat belt as I pulled my truck out of the parking space in front of the hardware store. “Are we going to talk about what happened at brunchtoday?”
I shifted my eyes right and assessed him briefly before sliding the truck into Drive and turning down the street toward my house just a few blocksaway.
Ev looked like he might vomit, which was pretty much how he'd looked ever since Shane had ventured into serious What The Fuck territory at the diner earliertoday.
Part of me wanted to scoop Ev up and comfort him, to tell him I hadn't realized Shane was capable of being so ignorant and hurtful.The other part of me, the petty part I liked to pretend wasn't there, was angrilysatisfied. I was scraped raw and aching from the way Ev had retreated from me, fromus. I wanted him to feel that waytoo.
“Do we have things to talk about?” Iasked.
Ev sighed, likeIwas the one being difficult orsomething.
“Silas, I’m sorry I pulled away from you. It wasn’t intentional. I was just shocked by what Shane said and I didn’t have time to processit.”
“That means your instinct was to pullaway.”
He sighed again and put his hand over mine where it rested on the gear shift. “You’re reading this whole thing wrong. It was the last straw in a long, emotional morning. It wasn’t me pulling away from you, it was me retreating back into myself, like a human turtle. But it had nothing to do with us and it wasn’t meant to hurtyou.”
I said nothing. Of course it wasn’t meant to hurt me. That didn’t mean it hadn’t. And I wasn’t dumb enough to believe Ev didn’t know the difference. He was deflecting. Just like he had for the past three fuckingweeks.
“Okay, then,” I said. “Tell me aboutit.”
“Aboutwhat?”
“About your long, emotional morning. Help meunderstand.”
He slid his hand away from mine, retreating again, but I caught it and held it on top of theconsole.
“Grandpa Hen was telling me stories about my grandmother,” he said. “About losing her. And about how he cared about me and has never hated me for being gay.” He picked at imaginary lint on his pants with his free hand. “It was a lot to takein.”
“I wondered about that,” I said. “The way he looked at you sometimes, I could see that he cared.” I paused and looked at his profile again. “So, how are you feeling aboutit?”
He turned his head and peered at me, green eyes suspicious andnotin a cute way. “Is this a therapy session now? Are we doingtherapy?”
“No!Jesus. I’m just asking what your emotional state is right now after your long, emotional morning. It’s aquestion,Everett.”
“Fine. I’m fine. Emotional state isone hundred percentfine.”
“That’s great,” I said, dropping his hand so I could turn onto my street. “Thanks so much for initiating this talk. It’s beenenlightening.”
“What do you want me to say, Silas?” Ev threw up his hands in frustration. “I don’t know what to do here. You’re the one who said we could take things slow, and now you’re upset that I’m not exhibiting enough PDA when we’re eatingbreakfast.”
“You know what I want you to say?” I demanded as I pulled into my driveway and turned the car off. “I want you to tell me somethingreal,Ev. You and I met six weeks ago tomorrow.” He looked surprised, and I nodded. “Right? Seems like it should be more, doesn’tit?”
Seemed like it should take longer for a person’s life to be turned inside out and upside down. But apparently not, because here I was, with my fucking guts spilling all over thetruck.
I turned in my seat to face him, my eyesnarrowed.
“The night we met, we had something special. The way you laughed, the way you smiled, the way you just…gotme. I have never in my life felt the connection I felt with you. We were together for anhour, and you were all I could think about the next morning. Hell, you were all I could think abouteverymorning afterthat.”
“Silas…”
“And then you pulled away. And I get it. Idoget it.Grief isn’t linear.I said it, I meant it. And I fucked up, because I got scared when I felt myself falling for you and I worried you weren’t feeling that way. I said a whole bunch of stupid shit that I regret, and I think you know just how much I regretit.”
He nodded once, a short bob of his head, but the rest of him was frozenstill.
“But then we got together and I thought… I thoughtthis is it. You know? That if we wereconnectedfrom the first minute, surely it would justgrow, right? That everything would get better and deeper as we spent more time together, and I would like you even more, the more I got to know you, and some things about you would drive me crazy, but in a good way. And it has! All of that has been true.For me.But for you…” I shook my head. “It’s theopposite.”
