We exchanged numbers and when we moved on from a one-night stand into two-night sleepovers, it seemed like the logical next step was to meet his partner. Spencer was returning from a meditation retreat in Bali that night. Over bottles of Bordeaux, we all got to know each other in the kitchen, in the dining room, in the living room, and finally, and quite climactically, in the bedroom.
I was violating so many of my own rules. I saymy own, but I do mean rules Bentley laid out for us over a long and turbulent friendship. We weren’t supposed to get into anything serious. Serious was for old people. Serious was for status.
But with Baz and Spencer, I was getting status, so with that box checked, I gave myself the green light. Our relationship was like driving a Corvette on an open road with the top down. That is until I missed the yellow light and they suddenly flashed me the red.
“You okay?” Hector asks.
“Totally,” I say, even though I don’t believe it. It’s not a feeling I’ve sat with in a while without making a joke of the whole thing. Now it’s almost suffocating.
“What happened?”
I go back and forth over whether to tell him the version Sarah Pearson sold or the truth. We’re in pretty deep at this point. The truth seems like the better, kinder option. “I got very drunk and very high at a Fire Island party. The three of us had been fighting earlier in the month over Baz’s latest music video. His team had been having difficulty casting his love interest for the shoot, and Baz got the idea that one of us could do it. I suggestedbothof us could be in it to avoid any hurt feelings and put some positive polyamory-representation out into the world.
“Well, Spencer made this whole case about howhe’sbeen around the longest and howhefit the casting breakdown better and howhewas the only reliable one. He made me feel worthless. Like I meant nothing in the relationship. Jump forward to our trip, and it comes out that they’d decided without me and filmed it behind my back. Completely betrayed my trust. And, well, I spiraled.” I clear my throat. “The way I did the other night…”
“You had an anxiety attack?” Hector asks in plain language that shocks me. Nobody in my circle says it outright.
I hesitate, but ultimately nod, words like marbles in my mouth. “I have a…um, generalized anxiety disorder.” He doesn’t flinch. For some reason, I didn’t expect him to. It confirms something unnameable for me. “Confrontation of any kind can set me off. Neither of them felt they did anything wrong. My mind was tunneling. I was sweating. It sucked.”
“Did they know?” Hector asks, totally calm.
I shake my head. “No, I never told them. It’s not something I talk about with anyone except my therapist.”
He half smiles. “Thanks for telling me. You don’t have to say any more if you don’t want to.”
“No.” I press on. “It’s fine. I was feeling mad and impulsive, and the ecstasy I stupidly took to combat the anxiety was really kicking in. So, while wearing only a white jockstrap and matching harness, I got up on the DJ dais and stole a microphone.” I imagine myself back on that stage, vision hazy, hundreds of eyes cast upon me in confusion.
“This can’t be going anywhere good.” Hector’s enraptured by every word.
“Hold on for this story. It’s going to be a bumpy one,” I say. “I called everyone to attention and then announced to the crowd that the sausages in Spencer’s family’s breakfast sandwiches were made of baby horsemeat. Out of nowhere. No pretense. No context. Just me, cross-faded, shouting a bold-faced lie: ‘The sausages are made from baby horses!’” I sigh, realizing that the boy I’m talking about is a different iteration of myself from a separate past life, removed from who I am here. All the previous me’s have been chunked off, lopped into little figurines in a Dickens-style display that represent old hurts. Oh, how I want to take a bat to the table and smash them all to smithereens.
“How did this not get out online?” he asks, trout-faced.
“The saving grace was that it was partially a sex party, so they made us check our phones with our clothes in locked pouches at the door. Nobody was able to record it and make it go viral, but word of mouth still spread, and Spencer was pissed.”
“That’s some seriously messy shit.”
“I know.” I palm my face. “Thankfully, Spencer’s family did not sue for defamation. Instead, my parents paid Sarah Pearson, our publicist, to make the story go away. She planted an article about our three-way mutual parting, and I begrudgingly moved back in with my parents.”
“And what happened with the music video?”
“It was a moderate steamy hit on gay Twitter.” I crack an uncomfortable laugh, remembering a time when I wouldn’t have thought twice in engaging in that kind of online exposure. “It’s funny because I swore I’d finally gotten something right. That we three were meant to be.” I force a feigned smile. “So, as you can see, we’re sitting in the same sinking boat. Can’t get home. Can’t fix our past relationships. Can’t figure out a goddamn theme for this goddamn gala. I could use some movie comfort right now.”
“All right, let’s do it then,” Hector says before helping me get my laptop connected to the Ethernet cable and the movie rental pulled up. The cable still doesn’t reach far enough to situate the screen anywhere for us both to have a good view. We end up pulling the rocking chair in front of my bunk and placing the computer on the seat. That means Hector and I will have to both sit in my bed to see.
“Is this okay?” Hector asks, taking the end opposite my pillow. I nod, curling up into a ball so none of our extremities touch. If we make any kind of contact while in a bed, I might go full Frosty the Snowman and melt. My hot and heavy fantasies of him and me together can only be quelled by firmly maintained physical distance.
The opening song brings back memories of Christmases past. Of parents bracketing me in on a comfortable couch. A refrigerator door covered with holiday cards from all over the map. A world that felt small at the edges but infinite in possibility.
As the movie plays, Krampus threatens to rip through, but I beat him back. Not now. Not next to Hector, who’s looking at Kermit with so much childish glee. I hope he can’t see that I’m looking at him the same way.
Except the side of his mouth hitches, and his eyes flick over. He’s caught me. “Thanks for telling me that stuff. And for tonight in general. I, uh, yeah. Just thanks.” Scrooge appears on screen again and my miserly ways fall to pieces.
There’s a hint of bashfulness on full display in Hector’s expression. It’s the same hint I saw after Natalia kissed him. Do I have that effect on him too?
“Of course. And if you ever want to talk about anything—related or not—I’m willing to listen,” I say. He nods, but it’s long and languorous, like he’s contemplating even more.
“Was staying with those dudes really what you wanted?” he asks suddenly.
