I did need someone to talk to. My life was falling apart, and I had no one.
Except the friend sitting right here next to me, waiting for me to trust him.
“I guess there’s no better place to start than the beginning,” I said softly, moving my hands away from my face. There was so much to tell and I let him in on all of it. From being the fat kid, the target of ridicule and bullying, to Micah being my only friend no matter how much I weighed.
I told him about how we were together as teenagers and about how a stupid misunderstanding pulled us apart for nearly a decade. I told him about how my words sent Micah away to war, how they cost him his arm, and his mental stability. And all the while, Brandon sat there and listened, never judging, never cringing, never once making me feel like my life was less important because of who I loved.
“And then one day he came back into my life, without warning really. And I could tell he was hiding something, but I didn’t want to push him away. I wanted him right here with me. So I was greedy. I kept him all to myself when I knew, I justknew,that there was something he was running away from.”
“That’s not greed.” Brandon cut in, sympathy in his eyes. “That’s love.”
Again, he was right.
“He has a wife, Brandon. A fucking wife. And a kid. How can I compete with that?”
“Who the hell says you have to compete?” Brandon asked, sounding genuinely confused by my take on the situation.
“Do you see him here?” I looked around the living room, being rather dramatic and completely absurd. “Oh, that’s right, he left,” I declared. “He chose them. Not me.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Brandon cursed, standing from his seat. Without saying a word, he went to the cabinet holding the bourbon and grabbed his glass from the counter. After pouring a glass for himself, he walked back into the living room, swirling the amber liquid in his tumbler. “I need a drink to celebrate this moment.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? I tell you everything, and you want to sit there and gloat?” Rage filled every inch of my body. I knew Brandon could be a jerk, but I thought deep inside he was a decent guy.
It’s not the first time I’ve been wrong about someone.
“Not that.” He laughed, bringing the glass into the air as if he was about to give a speech. “You have done it to me on so many occasions, and while you’re never wrong, it’s not something I ever have the chance to say,” he spoke, still holding his glass up and confusing the shit out of me. “So here’s to the very first time in our friendship that I get to call you an asshole and really mean it.” As if he was clinking it against the nonexistent glass in my hand, Brandon said, “Cheers,” before sucking down his double shot in one large gulp. He set the glass down on the coffee table and casually crossed his leg, resting his ankle on his knee. “Want to know why you’re an asshole?” he asked, a huge smirk on his face.
Beyond annoyed, I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to keep up with his stupid game. I was losing patience, yet he was just sitting there smiling like he’d just won the lottery. My nonresponse garnered a laugh from him, and if I could’ve, I would’ve have strangled him.
“You’re an asshole because you thought I’d care that you were gay.” As he placed his hand over his heart, he pouted his lower lip. And there was the Brandon I’d always known. The goofball class clown who’d do anything for a laugh. “And that hurts,” he said, patting his chest over his heart. “It cuts deep, man.” He laughed again before dropping his crossed leg to the floor and resting his elbows on his thighs. “You’re also an asshole because you never once thought about what must have been going through his head to make him leave.” There was no playfulness, no dramatics to that last statement, just the ringing indictment that I was, in fact, a huge asshole.
His words settled in as he went back into the kitchen to pour another drink. When he returned, he handed me one. “I think you deserve it now,” he decided. Drinking his slowly, he laughed at me when I swallowed mine in one large gulp. I needed to feel the burn of the alcohol over the fiery heat of the truth.
Leaning back in his seat again, Brandon asked, “Now that you know he has a family, did you ever once consider how difficult it must have been for him to come here in the first place? What he left behind to find you again? Have you thought about how much you must mean to him in order for him to turn his back on all that?”
“Couldn’t be much since he just turned his back on me,” I sulked, knowing full well I sounded like a petulant child.
“It was probably a lot harder than you think,” he said before finishing the last of his drink. We sat in silence for a few minutes before he decided to leave, saying he wanted to give me some space to sort out my head.
I walked him to the door and said I’d see him sometime next week as we prepared for the opening of school. As he stood on the front porch, he ran a hand through his hair, saying, “Look, I’m the last person to tell you how to live your life. But if he makes you happy, hear him out. Give him a chance. You might be surprised by what he has to say.”
The vision of Micah saying something to Brandon before he pulled away came barreling through my head like a freight train. “What did he say to you?” I asked, immediately suspicious of what he knew.
He answered, “Maybe you should find him and ask him yourself,” before walking down the steps, getting into his car, and driving away.
Leaving me there with only his cryptic words and my bleeding heart, I walked back into my empty house where I looked for the answer in the bottle of bourbon.
