His lips turn down into a small, sad smile. “I called once to check what time you were landing even though your mom had sent me your flight itinerary a week before, and then I called to make sure they had space in the car for me even though your momandyour dad had assured me there was plenty of space, and then, because I was such a whipped jackass, I called again to double check what timeyou were landing. I was ready two hours before they were due to pick me up. I couldn’t wait. I was almost out of my skin at the airport. I was watching the board and holding that stupid fucking balloon…”
He sits up and swings his feet onto the carpet, turning his back to me. His back is tense, tight muscles knotted under skin. I reach out and put my hand on his shoulder, though, from his body language, I think he might shake me off. He stills briefly and then leans into my touch ever so slightly.
“I know we weren’t official or anything like that. I mean, we were always encouraging each other to kiss girls and that kind of thing, so maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised, and maybe I shouldn’t have taken it so badly, but holy shit, Jude. I never dreamed you’d turn up with your new boyfriend on your arm. I swear to God, I never,everthought you’d do that.”
“Romeo, no! He wasn’t—”
“Don’t bullshit me, okay. I want to get past it, but I can’t if you bullshit me. I know what it was. I asked him, and he told me.”
“Wait, this is Benji, right? You’re talking about the time Benji came home with me for Spring Break?”
He glaresat me incredulously. “Yes, I’m talking about fucking Benji! Who the fuck else would I be talking about?”
“But, Romeo, Benji and I didn’t…we were never—”
“Of course you were!” he booms. “I asked him!”
A terrible, crawling feeling rolls in my gut. Disbelief and horror morph into a slow realization that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. “And what did he say?”
“His exact words were—” Romeo flashes his eyes and tucks an imaginary lock of hair behind his ear. He raises the pitch of his voice and adds a cloying nasal quality to it. It’s a pretty good imitation of Benji, I have to admit. “‘I mean, we’re not official yet, but Judelshasbrought me home to meet his parents, so you know, it’s pretty serious.’”
He grabs the blanket on the end of my bed and pulls it over his lap angrily, and he’s quiet for a few beats.
“He told me not to tell you I knew. He said you wanted to come out to me yourself.” Romeo sighs again and a tremor of old anger shakes his head slowly from side to side. “You were the worst, d’you know that? That vacation, you were the worst. You kept making these dumb jokes and talking crap all the time. You were acting like someone I didn’t know. It took me a while to piece it together, but you were showing off for him, you dick.”
He turns his head, looking back at me over his shoulder with eyes laced with anger and pain. I sit up and move next to him, tightening my grip on him, digging my fingers into the meat of his shoulder. This time, he does shrug me off.
His eyes slide shut and his voice cracks. “I was holding a balloon, Jude.” Anger wavers and ripples and turns to liquid. “I was holding a fucking balloon and”—his chest heaves—“and you turned up with your new boyfriend. I waited all break for you to tell me you were gay and dating him, and you didn’t even bother to do that. And then you turned up at my window in the middle of the night and tried to kiss me?” His chest heaves and his breath comes in short, jerky gasps. “I was so angry I couldn’t see.”
“But, Romeo—”
“No!I’m still talking! I’ve spent fuckingyearsthinking about this and trying to work out what the hell I could or should have done differently, and here’s what I’ve got: I should have told you, okay? I know that. I should have told you I knew you liked guys. I knew you did, but when I asked, you said no, and I didn’t know what to do with that. It was the only time I ever felt you weren’t being truthful with me, and it threw me. I should have clarified though. Maybe I should have told you I didn’t mind and still loved and supported you. Maybe that would have helped. I don’t know. I couldn’t think straight. I was so hurt andangry I felt violent. I don’t know why the thought of you being with a guy upset me so much when you’d always been fine with me being with girls, okay? I don’t know. Maybe it’s problematic of me, but I’ve thought about it for years. I’ve tried everything I can think of to reason with myself, and it doesn’t help. I’m still fucking upset about it. I’m jealous, Jude, and I guess I should have told you that too, so you’d have known what you were dealing with.”
He winces as he says it and turns to me with a look that makes my hair stand on end. “I’m not just jealous. I’mjealous. Crazy jealous when it comes to you. The kind of jealous that makes me feel sick. Really sick. You weremine, Tiger.” He grits his teeth and speaks through them. “Mine. I thought you knew that.” He looks like he did that day after we’d been to the lake all those years ago, after I got bitten by mosquitoes and he took my wrist and held it as if it was his. Possessive. Domineering.
I feel the same now as I did then. A rush. A rightness.
He's right.
I was his. I am his.
I put my hand on his knee and wait until he looks at me. “Romeo,” I say firmly. “Nothing happened with Benji. Nothing. I mean, he propositioned me a few times and grabbed my dick once when I was passed out, but other than that, nothing. Ever.”
Romeo leaps to his feet, flinging the blanket onto the floor and kicking it away from him as he searches for his jeans and pulls them on roughly, hopping on the spot as he zips up.
“Don’t!” His finger is pointed an inch or less from my face. “Don’t lie to me. I’mtryingto get past this. I’m trying to find my way back to you, but I can’t do that if you lie to me.”
“I’m not lying.”
An aquamarine gaze hardens, then softens. Advancing, retreating. Coming closer and holding me at arm’s length. “I want to believe you,” he says softly. “I really want to, but—”
I search my mind desperately for something, anything I can find that will prove what I’m saying. I find it at last. “I have something to show you.”
I take out my phone and search for a long-forgotten contact. A person I haven’t seen or spoken to in years. A person I didn’t think was more than a minor character in my story. An extra. A walk-on with hardly any lines.
The message has been archived, so it takes a while to open, but when it does, I place my phone in Romeo’s outstretched hand.
Don’t ever touch me like that again. I love Romeo. I only want him
